BX  7231  .N37  1909 

Nash,  Charles  Sumner,  1856- 

1926. 
Congregational 


CONGREGATIONAL 
ADMINISTRATION 


The  Carew  Lectures  before  the  Hartford  

Theological  Seminary  -''<\5\V^^   ^^  ^^^^JCtf 


1908-1909 


BY  CHARLES  SUMNER  NASH 


[*     JUL  11  1910 


t^C^ 


Professor  of  Homiletlcs  and  Pastoral  Theology  in  the 
Pacific  Theological  Seminary 


^/CAL  StViV^ 


BOSTON 
THE  PILGRIM  PRESS 

NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 

1909 


Copyright,  igog. 
By  Charles  Sumner  Nash 


PREFACE 

The  following  lectures,  published  substantially 
as  they  were  delivered,  attempt  to  state  sym- 
pathetically and  constructively  the  principles  of 
the  Congregational  polity  with  reference  to  pres- 
ent phases  and  problems.  Attention  is  not  turned 
upon  the  past.  The  Scriptural  deduction  of 
our  principles  and  the  story  of  our  historic  de- 
velopment have  been  given  repeatedly.  These 
lectures,  while  consistent  with  the  past,  desire  to 
serve  immediate  conditions  and  emergencies  in  our 
church  life.  We  are  in  no  little  confusion,  such 
as  always  attends  progress.  There  are  earnest 
inquiries  and  disagreements  among  us  respecting 
methods  of  procedure.  Reorganizations  in  the 
interest  of  closer  ranks  and  united  action  are  pro- 
ceeding in  many  parts  of  the  land,  and  as  well  in 
oversea  Congregationalism.  We  are  feeling  our 
way  toward  the  better  thing.  That  there  is  a 
better  thing  and  that  we  can  and  must  achieve  it 
large  numbers  of  us  are  convinced.  The  Con- 
gregational churches  in  large  majority  seem  in- 
tent upon  becoming  the  Congregational  Church. 

Our  problem  is  that  of  an  efficient  democracy, 
how  to  organize  an  effective  union  without  over- 
riding or  fettering  personal  and  local  liberty ;  or, 
in  the  words  of  Mr.  John  Fiske,  "the  task  of 
combining  indestructible  union  of  the  whole  with 
indestructible  life  in  the  parts.'"  It  is,  moreover, 
'  Beginnings  of  New  England,  p.  48. 


how  tO'  dO'  this  in  our  Congregational  way,  how 
to  make  our  own  peculiar  contribution  to  modern 
development  in  both  Church  and  State.       With 
local  independence  we  are  perfectly  familiar;  of 
union  of  the  whole  we  are  still  not  a  little  igno- 
rant and  afraid.     Upon  that  union,  however,  in 
some  wise  form,  we  are  resolved,  answering  the 
charge  of  inefficiency  and  defeat,  and  responding 
to  the  call  of  modern  organized  life  to  unflagging 
zeal  and  grander  enterprise.         The  mission  of 
Congregationalism  —  whether  in  other  hands  or 
ours  —  to  human  progress  is  still  great  and  long. 
The  service  of  our  own  body  of  churches  is  be- 
lieved to  be  far  from  complete.       Our  augmented 
resources,  personal  and  material,  have  overtaxed 
the  old  methods  of  service,  and  are  waiting  half 
inactive  to  be  marshaled  afresh.     The  new  ways, 
so  far  from  being  less  than  denominational,  are 
taking   interdenominational,    national   and   inter- 
national proportions.       Many-voiced  and  sharp  is 
the    challenge    to    enlarged    administration   for 
mightier  movements  afield. 

Charles  Sumner  Nash. 
Berkeley,  California,  August  i,  1909. 


CONTENTS 

Lecture  Page 

I.       EsSENTlAIv    CONGREGATIONAUSM  I 

II.     MiNisTERiAi.  Leadership  35 

III.  Forms  oe  Local  Feli^owship  71 

IV.  State  Unification  ioi 
V.     National  Unity  129 

VI.       CONGREGATIONAEISM     AND     ChURCH 

Union  155 


TO    MY    WIFE 


LECTURE  I 
ESSENTIAL  CONGREGATIONALISM 


CONGREGATIONAL  ADMINISTRATION 

I 

ESSENTIAL  CONGREGATIONALISM 

The  Congregational  polity  ranks  with  the 
Presbyterian,  the  Episcopalian  and  the  Papal 
polities  as  one  of  the  historic  forms  of  church 
organization.  It  is  found  in  principle  and  illus- 
tration in  the  New  Testament.  Framed  and 
developed  in  the  last  three  hundred  years,  it  has 
already  made  great  history.  Brought  to  these 
shores  by  the  Pilgrims,  it  gave  creative  spirit  and 
form  to  this  nation ;  a  form  remaining  essen- 
tially unaltered,  a  spirit  unsubdued  by  corruption. 

From  early  years  this  polity  has  been  carried 
beyond  the  circle  of  churches  which  originated 
it.  Since  Roger  Williams  the  other  congregational 
Congregational  Baptists  have  ^denominations 
become  a  multitude.  Using  essentially  this  order 
there  are  also  Unitarians,  Disciples,  Christians, 
Plymouth  Brethren  and  others,  until  the  Con- 
gregational polity  now  covers  more  than  forty 
per  cent,  of  the  American  Protestant  churches. 
The  several  regiments  show  minor  differences ; 
the  main  principles  everywhere  distinguish  the 
polity.  Doubtless  we  Congregationalists  have 
special  proprietary  rights  therein.  We  should 
show  best  its  characteristic  spirit.  Dr.  Williston 
Walker  has  well  said,  "The  body  known  as  the 
[3] 


Congregation  al  A  dm  in  istration 

Congregational  churches  has  a  distinct  unity  and 
history.  It  represents  something  more  than  a 
form  of  church  government.  .  .  .  The  Con- 
gregational churches  constitute  a  distinct  reli- 
gious whole  —  as  marked  in  its  characteristics 
as  any  religious  denomination  in  America."  ^ 
Yet  we  cannot,  nor  would  we,  hinder  others  from 
developing  the  polity  into  efficiency  superior  to 
our  own.  And  we  must  be  quick  to  learn  from 
any  competent  instructors. 

These  lectures  will  discuss  the  Congregational 
polity  with  reference  to  our  own  body.  They 
The  Congregational  will  not  return  to  the  field  of 
Polity  To-Day  ^s^^^^    Testament    study.      From 

that  source  have  been  drawn  often  enough  the 
form  and  warrant  of  our  order.  Nor  shall  we 
tarry  in  our  three  centuries  of  Congregational 
history.  Glorious  indeed  it  is,  and  worthy  of 
all  attention  and  labor.  But  these  lectures  are 
engaged  upon  the  present  day  v/ith  a  forward 
look.  The  taking  of  such  modern  limits  should 
require  no  justification.  Mr.  Heermance  is  right, 
in  his  book  on  "Democracy  in  the  Church,"  the 
most  significant  recent  presentation  of  our  polity, 
when  he  says,  "The  Christian  Church  must  be 
free  at  any  period  to  adapt  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples which  it  derives  from  Christ  to  the  exigen- 
cies of  its  life.  .  .  .  We  shall  insist  in  the 
name  of  the  churches  on  absolute  freedom  to  ap- 
ply fundamental  principles  directly  to  present 
'  Congregationalists,  pp.  427,  428. 
[4] 


Essential  Congregationalism 

conditions,  whatever  may  have  been  the  usage 
of  the  fathers."  ' 

There  is  abundant  reason  for  attention  to  the 
present  with  reference  to  the  future.  The  "Chris- 
tian World"  of  London  compared  a  congregational 
unfavorably  our  International  consciousness 
Congregational  Council  in  Edinburgh  with  the 
Pan-Anglican  Congress  held  about  the  same  time 
in  London.  It  criticized  the  Edinburgh  program 
as  engaged  too  little  with  the  present  and  future, 
adding,  "Far  too  much  time  is  taken  up  with  in- 
quiries into  the  title  deeds  of  Congregationalism 
and  what  Congregationalism  has  done  in  the  past. 
The  burning  questions  are:  What  is  Congrega- 
tionalism doing  to-day,  and,  What  is  it  going  to 
do  in  the  futui-e?"  If  that  were  the  only  voice 
of  the  kind,  it  might  be  ignored.  But  the  same 
cry  comes  up  from  all  quarters  of  the  Congrega- 
tional world.  There  is  much  inquiry,  much  sug- 
gestion, much  perplexity,  much  strong  purpose. 
The  National  Council  in  its  Cleveland  meeting 
made  a  list  of  recommendations  to  the  churches 
which  have  engaged  earnest  attention  throughout 
the  land.  Maine,  Nev/  Hampshire,  Rhode  Island, 
Connecticut,  New  York,  Ohio,  Illinois,  Michi- 
gan, Wisconsin,  Iowa,  South  Dakota,  Washing- 
ton, Northern  and  Southern  California  and  other 
states  have  taken  action  in  line  therewith.  The 
New  England  Congress  is  well  forward  in  the 
advance.  The  South  has  joined  the  march. 
*  Democracy  in  the  Church,  pp.  2,  3. 
[5] 


Congregational  Administration 

The  Pacific  Coast  has  attained  an  active  self- 
consciousness.  The  present  is  a  most  promising 
hour  by  reason  of  our  general  concern  and 
endeavor. 

There  is  also  much  to  make  the  present  hour 
one  of  unusual  opportunity  for  our  polity  in  gen- 
congregationai  eral,  for  any  body  of  churches  or- 
opportunity  ganizcd  under  it,  and  in  particular 

for  ourselves.  We  properly  rejoice  in  our  sim- 
plicity and  adaptability,  our  breadth  of  sympathy, 
our  freedom  of  thought,  creed,  speech  and  action. 
These  qualities  supply  individual  strength,  but 
sometimes  at  a  cost  of  corporate  weakness.  They 
have  won  many  to  our  ranks,  but  have  likewise 
spoiled  us  of  multitudes  who  have  easily  slipped 
away  into  other  connections.  These  qualities  are 
now  at  a  premium  in  our  modern  life.  The  new 
day  has  come  forward  to  meet  our  fitness. 

Furthermore,  our  polity  furnishes  one  of  the 
greatest  principles  for  social  and  ecclesiastical  or- 
Dcmocratic  Tendency  ganization,  viz.,  personal  and 
in  other  Polities  Jq^^^j   autonomy,    freedom   and 

self-direction  for  the  individual  and  the  local 
group.  This  must  be  one  of  the  corner-stones 
of  the  ultimate  polity,  as  of  perfected  human  life 
in  all  departments.  It  is  interesting  to  observe 
how  the  other  great  polities  have  developed  mod- 
trnly  in  this  direction  of  freedom.  Under  the 
Presbyterian  order  both  Presbyterian  and  Meth- 
odist churches  have  secured  an  unprecedented 
measure  of  self-control.  The  Methodist  bishop 
[6] 


Bsscntial  Congregationalism 

is  a  superintendent  of  work,  not  a  lord  of  life, 
while  the  presiding  elder  has  just  been  given  the 
more  suitable  title  of  district  superintendent. 
The  Episcopalian  churches  are  supervised  with- 
out coercion,  and  enjoy  much  latitude  of  thought 
and  creed  as  well  as  much  free  variety  in  active 
service.  And  even  Rome  has  upon  her  hands 
some  hardly  manageable  affairs,  such  as  the 
French  government,  the  Modernist  movement, 
the  American  nation.  This  mere  mention  must 
suffice  for  the  fact  that  the  more  highly  organ- 
ized polities  have  been  tending  our  way  in  this 
central  matter  of  human  liberty.  We  who  were 
free-born  can  watch  with  equanimity  their  pur- 
chases of  freedom. 

Important  for  us  are  also  current  developments 
toward  direct  democracy  beyond  the  domain  of 

religion.      The   new   state  of  Okla-  Direct  Democracy 

homa  has  adopted  a  most  demo-  ^"  *^®  ^*^*® 
cratic  constitution.  In  Oregon  great  issues  have 
been  passed  upon  at  the  polls  in  state  election, 
and  the  choice  of  United  States  Senator  deter- 
mined by  popular  vote.  Direct  primaries  have 
come  or  are  at  hand  in  most  states.  New  York's 
experience  in  the  late  campaign  was  characterized 
as  the  awakening  of  a  great  state.  In  that  cam- 
paign the  appeal  all  over  the  land  was  more  than 
ever  to  the  thinking  man,  presenting  solid  mate- 
rials for  reflection  and  decision.  In  politics,  in- 
dustry, education,  and  indeed  in  all  social  depart- 
ments, the  same  movement  toward  enlightened 
[7] 


Congregational  Administration 

participation  is  pronounced.  In  so  far  as  this 
is  the  day  of  resurgent  democracy,  when  the  peo- 
ple reassert  ultimate  authority  to  delegate  power 
and  to  withdraw  it,  when  they  insist  upon  re- 
turning to  direct  initiative  in  many  things  large 
and  small,  the  churches  that  are  constituted  upon 
these  very  principles  of  individual  intelligence, 
popular  initiative  and  inalienable  authority  must 
realize  a  fresh  opportunity. 

Along  with  this  movement  back  toward  direct 
democracy  has  gone  another  tendency,  viz.,  to- 
Organized  ward  Stronger  union.  It  is  perhaps 
Democracy  i^uev  to  Say  that  the  democratic  move- 
ment has  gone  beyond  individualism  and  direct 
democracy,  and  is  driving  hard  into  organized 
democracy.  And  by  as  much  as  our  modern  day 
has  achieved  stronger  combination  and  more 
united  action  than  ever  before,  our  free 
churches  must  learn  the  ways  of  organized 
democracy.  This  is  no  time  for  the  free- 
churchman  to  swing  off  alone  and  strike  for 
Christ  and  humanity  when  and  where  he 
pleases.  In  state,  in  labor,  in  religion,  we 
have  reached  glorious  manhood  and  splendid 
group  consciousness;  so  far  we  have  restored  the 
conditions  and  personal  power  of  the  New- 
England  town  meeting  or  the  New  Testament 
churches;  but  we  have  also  learned  to  marshal 
these  "bayonets  that  think"  into  regiments  and 
brigades  and  national  armies  and  even  interna- 
tional armaments.  The  men  are  free,  the  groups 
[8] 


Bssential  Congregationalism 

are  independent  in  their  local  life,  but  they  form 
of  their  own  will  a  closer  and  mightier  force  than 
was  ever  driven  together  and  wielded  by  coercive 
authority.  It  is  this  last  step  into  administrative 
union  that  we  Congregationalists  need  to  take. 
We  have  the  elements  and  resources  in  ample 
measure  —  strong  personality,  churches,  associa- 
tions, councils,  conferences,  national  societies, 
educational  institutions.  National  Council  —  all 
these  afire  with  high  spirit  and  possessing  a  con- 
stituency which  holds  great  material  resources. 
Wherever  our  machinery  is  not  at  any  moment 
productive,  it  can  readily  be  made  so.  The  equip- 
ment is  magnificent.  It  only  needs  to  be  set  to- 
gether into  an  effective  array,  wherein  the  total 
power  can  be  driven  upon  one  inclusive  purpose. 
The  future  belongs,  not  to  unordered  individual- 
ism, not  to  authoritative  compulsion,  but  to  the 
voluntary  administrative  union  of  self-realized 
manhood,  every  man  a  king. 

The  administrative  question  of  every  hour  for 
any  polity,  whether  in  Church  or  in  State,  and 
for  any  organized  body  under  any  pol-  ProMem  of 
ity,  is  the  question  of  efficiency  and  re-  Efficiency  ^ 
suits.  We  must  answer  for  deeds.  The  Church 
is  means,  not  end.  We  must  ever  ask.  How  may 
we  do  our  full  part  in  the  world's  work?  This 
is  the  inquiry  of  these  lectures.  The  question 
whether  we  Congregationalists  are  doing  our  full 
part  is  not  up;  we  lament  that  w^e  are  not,  and 
the  lamentation  is  no  less  than  national.  The 
[9] 


Congregational  Administration 

question  is,  Hoav  tO'  do  our  part?  Says  one 
writer,  "It  is  only  by  covering  the  meanness  of 
our  performances  with  the  magnificence  of  our 
principles  that  we  can  hide  from  ourselves  the  ex- 
traordinary inefiiciency  of  our  present  methods, 
judged  as  a  method  of  conserving,  continuing  and 
extending  the  life  of  Christian  communities."* 
Difference  of  opinion  must  be  admitted  upon 
what  constitutes  our  Congregational  part,  how 
great  it  is,  v.-hat  results  to  aim  at  and  count  satis- 
factory. But  most  of  us  are  not  content  to  be  a 
loose  aggregation  of  churches,  pleased  to  exem- 
plify individualism,  to  diffuse  an  atmosphere  of 
freedom,  to  show  the  organized  modern  world 
how  little  can  nov\-  be  done  separately  or  how 
much  can  still  be  done  separately,  and  to  enjoy  a 
quiet  brotherhood  of  spiritual  communion.  We' 
believe  in  more  definite  duty,  more  concrete  and 
ponderable  results.  We  hear  the  cry  of  souls  lost 
through  the  interstices  of  unorganized  search. 
We  confess  the  obligation  of  united  labor.  We 
know  that  six  thousand  churches  properly  arrayed 
are  able  to  produce  enormous  results,  and  we 
know  that  our  six  thousand  churches  are  far 
short  of  that  great  measure.  In  that  faith  and 
these  confessions  is  reason  enough  for  our  rest- 
lessness and  discontent,  our  words  of  mutual  re- 
assurance, our  splendid  hope  and  courage,  and 
our  unflagging  industry. 

Efficiency,  then,  is  the  duty  of  the  hour.     But 
*  Macfadyen,  Constructive  Congregational  Ideals,  p.  47. 
[10] 


Essential  Congregationalism 

efificiency  has  a  fuller  meaning  in  this  social  age. 
We  cannot  remain  content  to  go  on  turning  our 
church  wheels,  putting  out  individual  spiritual 
product  in  moderate  measure.  The  vast,  tangled 
social  problems  have  challenged  us.  Opportunity 
in  these  and  inspiration  for  them  must  be  given 
to  men  on  a  commensurate  scale.  Churches  that 
are  not  living  a  national  life  cannot  be  fountains 
of  national  inspiration.  Churches  that  are  not  feel- 
ing the  pulse-beat  of  a  close-knit  body  stretching 
far  through  the  straining  social  fabric  cannot 
speak  to  men's  hearts  with  impulses  that  carry 
out  into  the  heat  and  burden  of  the  day. 

The  problem  of  efficiency  is  to  be  solved 
through  adaptation.  This  principle  may  be 
denied  a  place  in  a  jure  divino  system  Adaptation  for 
like  that  of  Rome,  but  in  democratic  E^^iency 
life  it  plays  a  constant  and  leading  part.  All  our 
x\merican  churches  claim  to  recognize  and  use 
it,  none  more  properly  than  ourselves.  The  swift 
currents  of  modern  advance  cannot  be  shut  out  of 
the  Church.  It  is  the  same  men  working  in  the 
Church  who  work  in  education  and  politics  and 
business.  They  know  that  the  forces  of  persua- 
sion, construction  and  achievement  are  the  same 
throughout.  They  are  watching  the  shifting 
scenes  of  human  action,  the  birth  of  new  desires, 
the  altered  preferences,  the  sweep  of  new  knowl- 
edge, the  demand  of  new  faith.  Efficiency,  for 
service  and  returns,  is  all  for  which  they  care. 
Without  pain,  with  only  a  financial  shrug,  thev 
[II] 


Congregational  Administration 

throw  out  upon  the  scrap-heap  machinery  that 
scarcely  shows  wear,  but  has  ceased  to  meet  the 
more  exacting  requirement.  In  affairs  ecclesi- 
astical and  spiritual  these  men  are  equally  ready 
to  discard  old  for  new  machinery,  and  hardly 
keep  patient  with  men  too  attached  to  wheels  and 
cogs  and  bands  —  or  the  absence  of  these  —  to 
discover  that  life's  calendar  has  swept  beyond 
them. 

The  Church  is  under  fire  for  its  tardiness  in 
adaptation.  Parts  of  its  apparatus  and  methods 
Tardy  are  charged  with  being  at  least  obsoles- 

Adaptation  cent;  it  is  obvious  that  the  product  is 
meager  and  old-fashioned.  And  yet  we  love  them 
so,  and  cannot  give  them  up,  these  true  and  tried 
servants  of  ours  —  not  living  men,  but  mere 
ways  and  means  of  doing  things.  Says  a  recent 
writer  on  our  polity,  "There  is  no  limit  to  the 
power  of  adaptation  which  our  system  possesses. 
We  are  not  faithful  to  our  ideal,  if  we  do  not 
avail  ourselves  of  it.  .  .  .  So  far  as  methods 
are  concerned,  the  Church  has  power  to  put  on 
institutions  when  it  wants  them,  and  to  put  them 
off  when  it  is  done  with  them."  '  These  words 
are  a  shout  of  administrative  liberty,  such  as 
many  a  Congregationalist  needs  to  hear.  How 
often  we  act,  and  how  many  of  us  always  act,  as 
if  we  could  not  put  off  institutions  and  methods 
when  we  are  done  with  them,  and  therefore  dare 

*  Macfadyen,  Constructive  Congregational  Ideals,  pp.  ii6, 
119. 

[12] 


Bssential  Congregationalism 

not  put  them  on  when  we  want  them.  Could  we 
once  get  our  seven  hundred  thousand  American 
CongregationaHsts  to  rejoice  unanimously  in 
this  power  to  assume  and  discard,  the  work  of 
reorganization  would  go  gloriously  on.  It  is 
Professor  Ladd  of  New  Haven  who  wrote  in  his 
volume  ^  that  we  Congregationalists  ought  to  be 
willing  to  change  as  current  conditions  may  de- 
mand, and  must  expect  the  alteration  of  all  save 
our  fundamental  principles. 

If,  willing  to  adapt  our  polity  to  modern  life, 
we  ask  what  is  required  of  us,  the  answer  is 
already  on  many  lips.  The  phrase,  An  Adequate 
"some  form  of  connectionalism,"  has  Administrative 
lately  become  current  among  us,  —  ''^ 
notorious,  some  stalwart  independents  might  say. 
I  like  a  phrase  which  I  noted  in  Mr.  Heermance's 
book,  "An  adequate  administrative  system."  We 
need,  for  adaptation  to  the  hour,  an  adequate  ad- 
ministrative system.  This  we  certainly  lack  at 
present.  We  have  parts  of  such  a  system,  work- 
ing admirably  in  localities  and  departments.  It 
will,  for  instance,  be  difficult  to  increase  the 
enterprise,  economy  and  productivity  of  the 
American  Board,  as  indeed  of  not  a  few  other 
Congregational  agencies.  But  these  parts  have 
not  been  built  together  into  a  system.  When  we 
call  for  an  adequate  system,  we  mean  equal  to 
duty  and  its  tasks.  We  have  already  noted  how 
these  have  grown.  They  cannot  be  kept  divided 
*The  Principles  of  Church  Polity,  p.  62. 
[13] 


Congregational  Adniimstration 

and  subdivided  into  unrelated  parts.  We  are 
oppressed  with  the  separate  administration  of  our 
national  societies,  whose  work  is  organically  one. 
Our  place  among  the  American  Churches  has 
become  far  less  creditable  than  formerly.  We 
have  not  retained  the  leadership  which  created 
this  nation.  And  when  this  is  said,  it  is  not  that 
petty  thing,  denominational  rivalry,  that  is  in 
mind,  but  duty  to  God  and  service  to  the  abysmal 
needs  of  men.  We  are  not  so  useful  compara- 
tively in  the  day's  work  as  we  used  to  be;  our 
polity  sometimes  seems  less  so  than  other 
polities;  and  it  is  being  employed  to  greater  ef- 
fect in  other  than  Congregational  hands.  Others 
are  showing  us  how  much  more  a  body  of 
churches  can  do  than  we  are  doing.  We  appear 
to  lack  practical  wisdom  in  administrative  meth- 
ods. This  charge  is  brought  against  us  from 
without  and  within,  and  judgment  must  be  con- 
fessed when  the  case  is  stated  in  such  compara- 
tive terms.  In  such  terms,  I  say,  for  the  case 
must  be  carefully  put  in  order  to  be  true.  I  can- 
not see  that  we  Congregationalists  have  declined 
in  either  amount  or  quality  of  service.  I  believe 
our  moral  and  spiritual  living  as  a  whole  to  be 
higher  than  ever,  less  morbid,  more  wholesome 
and  out-of-doors,  more  winsome  and  productive. 
Our  ministry  never  was  so  well  equipped,  de- 
voted and  faithful.  Our  methods  never  showed 
so  much  of  wise  adaptation  and  enterprise.  Our 
resources  are  more  generously  expended  than 
[14] 


Hssential  Congregationalism 

ever.  But  the  comparison  with  the  past  has  less 
of  rebuke  and  impulse  than  some  other  compari- 
sons. Measured  by  the  immense  strides  of  mod- 
ern life,  the  bewildering  growth  of  resources,  the 
astounding  disclosures  of  human  need,  the  ex- 
tent of  new  opportunity,  the  clearer  vision  of 
Christ  our  King,  the  sharpened  conscience  of  de- 
votion to  Him  —  measured  by  these  tests  which 
rise  out  of  the  conditions  of  the  hour  and  hang 
in  the  sky  before  us,  our  service  has  lagged  and 
fallen.  Though  we  are  greater  and  better  than 
ever,  we  are  seriously  inadequate  for  to-day  and 
to-morrow.  Our  administrative  system  —  have 
we  anything  which  can  be  called  such  ?  —  was 
devised  for  a  smaller  and  simpler  day.  Hence- 
forth details  of  work  done  locally  are  to  be  set 
in  vast  plans,  constructed  into  a  whole,  directed 
and  distributed  from  gathering-points  and  from 
the  center  of  all. 

Considering  the  erection  of  an  adequate  ad- 
ministrative system  upon  our  Congregational 
principles  and  with  the  use  of  the  upward  Trend  of 
good  and  fruitful  forms  already  crsanization 
possessed,  the  first  thing  to  notice  and  safeguard 
is  the  fact  that  our  organific  direction  is  from  be- 
low upward.  We  do  not  begin  with  overlords, 
whether  called  bishops  or  superintendents  or 
ministers.  We  begin  with  common  men,  free 
individuals,  uncoerced,  associating  themselves  in 
voluntary  local  churches,  each  church  as  free  in 
its  own  domain  as  the  souls  that  compose  it.  We 
[15] 


Congregational  Administration 

form  local  churches,  not  by  permission  or  order 
from  without,  but  by  divine  grace  in  the  heart. 
The  primary  obHgation  to  organize  ourselves  into 
churches  is  duty  directly  to  God  and  human  need. 
From  this  principle  of  organization  under  divine 
constraint  free  of  all  human  authority  we  swing 
our  total  administrative  system.  This  sunders 
us  radically  from  all  systems  that  work  from 
above  downward,  from  the  Papal  polity  surely, 
from  the  Episcopal  polity  almost  as  completely; 
not  however  from  the  Presbyterian  polity,  which 
begins  as  we  do  from  the  free  individual  and  the 
local  church,  but  further  on  adds  elements  of 
authority  which  we  decline.  Our  distinguishing 
mark,  therefore,  from  all  other  polities  together 
lies  beyond  the  formation  of  voluntary  churches ; 
it  lies  in  the  direct  democracy  and  inalienable 
authority  of  the  local  churches.  Into  their  pri- 
vate domain  no  hand  from  without  can  be  thrust. 
They  exercise  a  certain  rightful  pov/er,  often 
called  authority,  over  their  own  members,  based 
on  the  individual  duty  of  uniting  in  churches,  of 
staying  there,  and  of  behaving  Christianly.  This 
authority  is  no  more  than  the  semblance  of  co- 
ercion, inasmuch  as  a  member  cannot  be  held  in 
membership  if  determined  to  withdraw.  Au- 
thority, then,  even  in  local  churches,  is  only  the 
standing  affirmation  of  universal  duty  and  rea- 
sonable service;  it  is  right  reason;  it  is  personal 
and  corporate  influence  uttered  and  exerted  from 
one  to  another  and  by  all  unto  each.  Church 
[i6] 


Essential  Congregationalism 

officers  are  but  appointed  ag-ents  and  channels  of 
such  quasi  authority,  deriving  their  vocation  and 
enduement  from  Ciod,  their  fitness  from  culture 
methods,  their  specific  local  enlistment  from  the 
churches  themselves.  Discipline  and  organized 
service  are  thus  possible  only  as  drawing  all  their 
vitality  from  personal  loyalty  to  Christ  translated 
voluntarily  into  terms  of  church-membership  and 
work.  Thus  tenuous  and  weak  appears  ecclesi- 
astical leadership  when  referred  to  its  funda- 
mentals. But  so  deep  running  and  inwardly  con- 
straining is  this  loyalty  to  Christ  and  the  Church 
that  leadership  becomes,  even  in  our  voluntary 
system,  a  noble  and  influential  vocation,  discipline 
a  saving  grace,  and  united  action  a  dependable, 
mighty,  and  world-wide  power. 

The  local  church,  thus  principled,  becomes 
the  vitaUunit  for  all  the  larger  forms  in  the  polity. 
Out  of  it,  not  from  individual  Chris-  Local  church 
tians,  arise  those  larger  forms.  Asso-the  vital  umi 
ciations,  conferences,  councils,  societies,  National 
Council,  all  are  organizations  of  local  churches, 
not  of  individual  Christians,  not  of  independent 
and  authoritative  officials.  The  churches  unite 
of  their  own  will  into  all  these  social  forms,  giv- 
ing to  them  their  leadership,  their  standing  war- 
rant, their  life  itself.  General  order,  consistency, 
sympathy,  effective  union  are  secured  by  free 
agreement  in  adopting  the  same  forms.  Similar 
forms  and  uniform  terminology  thus  become  im- 
portant. The  higher  groups,  always  composed 
[17] 


Congregational  Administration 

of  churches,  though  acting  through  representa- 
tives, depend  on  the  lower  groups,  as  these  im- 
mediately upon  the  churches.  Thus  organization 
proceeds  from  below  upward,  while  leadership 
and  influence  are  trusts  and  ministration,  not  au- 
thority and  commandment.  We  have,  more- 
over, a  way,  especially  by  means  of  local  asso- 
ciations and  councils,  of  keeping  all  the  groups 
in  intimate  relations  with  the  churches  them- 
selves, as  will  further  appear  in  later  lectures. 
This  local  church  derivation  and  dependence,  with 
the  consequent  procedure  upward,  are  of  prime 
importance  to  the  conception  and  operation  of 
our  polity,  and  must  be  safeguarded  in  all  its  de- 
velopments. 

A  second  feature  of  our  polity  structure  is  its 
direct  democracy,  or  its  combination  of  direct 
Direct  and  indirect  democracy.  Each  local 
Democracy  churcli  is  a  direct  or  pure  democracy. 
We,  the  people  en  masse,  handle  affairs  with  im- 
mediate touch.  Our  theory  is  that  each  member 
be  an  intelligent  voter  and  capable  co-worker, 
able  to  propose,  discuss  and  pass  upon  proposi- 
tions, able  also  to  carry  his  part  of  the  church 
work  as  either  private  laborer,  officer,  or  com- 
mitteeman. Our  polity  calls  for  and  promotes 
universal  intelligence  and  participation.  We  suf- 
fer no  class  or  order  of  men  to  monopolize  capa- 
bility or  opportunity.  We  would  have  no  man 
evade  his  share  of  c^ligation  or  deprive  himself 
of  privilege  or  reward.  Nor  do  we  surrender 
[i8] 


Bsscntial  Congregationalism 

opportunity  and  privilege  to  any  small  body 
within  the  church.  At  this  point  we  decline  the 
company  of  our  neare^t__friends.  the  Presby- 
terians,  refusing  to  charge  an  annually  elected 
session  wnth  the  authoritative  conduct  of  the 
church's  life.  Reception  or  dismissal  of  mem- 
bers, election  of  delegates  to  fraternal  meetings, 
current  phases  and  problems  of  local  work  and 
welfare,  cases  of  discipline — in  short,  all  local 
matters  whatsoever  we  hold  in  the  common  hand. 
This  is  pure  democracy,  direct  popular  action 
upon  all  afifairs  within  reach. 

But  not  all  duty  is  within  reach  of  the  single 
church  and  individual  member.  Duty  stretches 
away  in  great  circles  to  the  world's  Representative 
end.  Afifairs  ecclesiastical  and  spir-  i*emocracy 
itual  shape  up  into  magnificent  proportions,  com- 
mensurate with  affairs  educational,  industrial 
and  political.  Mighty  forces,  equipped,  arrayed 
and  directed,  are  required  against  entrenched 
evils  and  vast  human  needs.  On  that  wide  field 
direct  democracy  is  as  good  as  helpless. 
Churches  serving  in  large  bands  must  act  by  rep- 
resentatives. Mr.  John  Fiske  says,  "Representa- 
tive government  in  counties  is  necessitated  by  the 
extent  of  territory  covered ;  in  cities  it  is  neces- 
sitated by  the  multitude  of  people."  '  The  Con- 
gregational churches,  having  their  county,  city, 
national  and  world-wide  life,  have  been  forced 
to  develop  forms  of  representative  or  indirect 
'  Civil  Government  in  the  United  States,  p.  loi. 
[19] 


Congregational  Administration 

democracy.  This  is  not  subversive  of  our  orig- 
inal character  or  destructive  of  Congregational 
principles.  Our  safety  lies  in  preserving  in  local 
affairs  the  direct  action  of  the  primary  assembly. 
We  do  not  substitute  representative  democracy; 
we  add  it  and  assign  it  its  own  secondary  realm. 
We  constitute  and  direct  it  from  below.  The 
local  church  maintains  pure  democracy  on  a  bet- 
ter status  than  does  the  town  meeting.  The  vital 
and  immediate  influence  of  the  churches  in  all 
the  larger  interests  is  far  greater.  For  us,  as 
for  all  free  churches  and  states,  the  problem  of 
democracy  is  the  mutual  adjustment  of  pure  and 
representative  democracy.  We  must  cease  to  fear 
the  latter.  We  must  hold  it  in  firm  control,  but 
give  it  worthy  and  fruitful  development. 

This  brings  us  to  a  third  consideration  regard- 
ing our  proposed  adequate  administrative  sys- 
Administration  tcm.  Our  representative  bodies, 
the  Sole  from     the     local     associations     and 

councils  up  to  the  National  Council, 
are  administrative  only.  Mr.  Heermance  has 
given  us  the  freshest  discussion  of  this  matter, 
comparing  the  Congregational  polity  with  others 
in  respect  to  the  three  possible  functions — legis- 
lative, judicial  and  administrative  —  of  repre- 
sentative bodies.  Congregationalism  began  right, 
and  has  continued  so,  in  excluding  all  provision 
for  legislative  and  judicial  procedure.  None  of 
our  representative  bodies  are  permitted  to  so 
much  as  enter  those  domains,  lest  we  suffer  in- 

[20] 


Bssential  Congregationalism 

sensible  encroachments  of  authority.  But  in  our 
terror  of  that,  we  have  deprived  ourselves  of 
the  administrative  function  to  a  point  far  below 
efficiency.  Herein,  says  Mr.  Heermance,  we  are 
two-thirds  right  and  one-third  wrong.  It  is  evi- 
dent now  in  the  growing  light  that  we  need  not 
remain  even  one-third  wrong.  We  may  safely 
correct  our  administrative  mistake.  "If  we  bear 
in  mind,"  adds  Mr.  Heermance,  "that  legislation 
and  judicature  have  no  place  in  the  Church,  in 
general  bodies  or  anywhere  else,  the  liberties  of 
the  churches  are  entirely  safe."  ' 

In  the  administrative  function  there  is  no  in- 
evitable impairment  of  personal  liberty  and  local 
independence.  These  latter  the  Con-  independence 
gregational  polity  is  prepared  to  pre-  "^o*  impaired 
serve  and  guarantee  under  whatever  development 
of  an  administrative  system.  For  the  native  pos- 
sessors of  authority  —  individual  Christians  and 
local  churches — do  not  surrender  it.  Our  repre- 
sentative bodies  are  granted,  not  power  over  the 
churches,  but  leadership  of  the  churches.  In  the 
first  place,  they  are  given  specific  tasks,  definite 
and  circumscribed  kinds  of  work  to  do,  like  the 
organization  of  the  church  or  the  ordination  of  a 
minister.  Some  would  hold  these  bodies  quite 
strictly  to  prescribed  tasks.  Dr.  Mackennal 
seems  to  do  so.  when  he  says,  "It  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  representatives  of  the  churches 
.  .  .  are  constituted  simply  to  fulfil  the  spe- 
*  Democracy  in  the  Church,  pp.  102,  103. 
[21] 


Congregation al  Administration 

cific  charges  committed  to  them."  '  Such  limits, 
however,  are  too  strait  for  efficiency  and  even  for 
Hberty.  Members  of  Congregational  churches 
do  not  surrender  the  native  right  of  individual 
and  collective  initiative  when  they  sit  as  repre- 
sentatives in  administrative  bodies.  We  expect 
initiative  of  such  bodies.  They  are  to  lead  off 
in  the  larger  fields  for  which  they  were  created. 
The  further  they  can  see  and  lead  forward  the 
better.  But  here  is  the  safeguard :  these  bodies 
are  not,  as  already  remarked,  allowed  authority 
over  the  churches.  We  constitute  no  body  with 
power  to  coerce  us,  or  to  go  forward  or  back 
without  us.  Apart  from  us  they  can  do  nothing, 
as  certain  of  our  higher  Congregational  bodies 
are  in  tedious  process  of  discovering.  Moreover, 
the  creative  hand  of  the  churches  keeps  a  dis- 
ciplinary and  even  a  destructive  hold  upon  its 
own  agencies.  Their  personnel  is  in  constant 
flux,  their  constitutions  are  exposed  to  precipitate 
alteration,  their  very  life  is  not  immortal  and 
may  be  snuffed  out.  And  furthermore  —  and  this 
is  the  most  practical  thing  of  all  —  the  churches 
preserve  the  right  of  initiative  and  the  power 
to  work  their  will  through  their  representatives. 
Constraint  and  coercion  and  authority  work,  not 
back  upon  the  churches,  but  from  the  churches; 
and  they  work.  The  representative  bodies  must 
and  will  do  the  bidding  of  the  churches.  The 
latter,  when  convinced  and  ready,  are  able  to  ef- 

*The  Witness  of  Congregationalism,  pp.  25,  26. 
[22] 


Bssential  Congregationalism 

feet  their  purpose.     This  is  the  point  of  safety 
and  power. 

A  striking  article  appeared  in  the  columns  of 
the  New  York  Independent,  October  22,   1908, 

from  the  pen  of  DeloS  F.   Wilcox,  Popular  initiative 

Ph.D.,  Mdierein  the  author  deline-  ^°*  Progress 
ated  the  undemocratic  development  of  our  repre- 
sentative political  forms,  and  the  enslaving  pass 
to  which  we  have  come.  His  conclusion  is  this : 
"The  next  step  forward  in  the  program  of  polit- 
ical development  is  the  democratization  of  the 
forms  of  government.  All  other  issues  pale  into 
insignificance  before  this.  Shall  the  people  be 
able  to  exercise  political  initiative  and  crystallize 
their  intelligence  into  progress?"'  In  this  most 
gracious  and  potent  liberty  we  of  the  Congrega- 
tional polity  live  and  labor  in  religion.  We  are 
entirely  able  to  exercise  initiative  and  crystallize 
our  intelligence  into  progress.  We  have  no  pro- 
visions, nor  will  we  consent  to  any,  whereby  our 
representative  bodies  can  ever  despoil  us  of  this 
free  power  of  popular  initiative  and  control 
Secure  in  this  possession,  we  need  not  hesitate 
to  develop  an  adequate  administrative  system  and 
keep  it  adequate  to  the  advancing  day. 

A  fourth  characteristic  of  our  polity  is  found 
in  the  fact  that  our  administrative  force  is  public 
opinion  or  right  reason.  There  are  PubUc  opinion 
other  phrases  for  it,  such  as  public  °"'"  ^""""^ 
sentiment,  general  consent.  It  is  more  than 
*  Independent,  p.  924. 
[23] 


Congregational  Administration 

truth;  it  is  a  certain  employment  of  truth.     It 
is  common  acknowledgment  of  truth  in  general 
and  a  specific  truth  in  hand,  with  the  active  adop- 
tion of  the  latter  as  a  measure ;  it  is  general  agree- 
ment that  that  is  the  right  thing  to  do  and  this 
the  proper  time  to  do  it.     To  the  authoritative 
polities  this  seems  no  power  at  all,  the  absence 
of  power  rather,  a  helpless  and  tedious  way  of 
leaving  things  to  work  themselves  out.     To'  us 
the  method  seems  of  the  very  essence  of  freedom, 
and  as  sure  as  the  mills  of  God.    They  who  can- 
not abide  it  must  foregather  elsewhere.     For  this 
is  really  our  method  and  our  power.     We  are 
forever    repeating   that   we   have    no    authority 
which  can  outrun  our  public  opinion.     Our  sole 
method  is  general  education,  approximately  uni- 
versal, on  any  measure  before  us,  and  the  re- 
sultant crystallization  of  conviction  and  purpose 
regarding  it.     It  is  a  slow  process.     We  die  piti- 
fully often  with  the  desire  of  our  hearts  unful- 
filled.     But   the   method   is   heaven's   own,   and 
counts  one  day  as  a  thousand  years  and  a  thou- 
sand years  as  one  day.     When  you  get  the  rea- 
soned conviction  and  consequent  deliberate  action 
of  a  large  body  of  intelligent  and  conscientious 
men,  you  have  the  finest  fruit  of  personality,  the 
closest  human  approach  to  truth  and  righteous- 
ness, and   the   mightiest   force  under  the  skies. 
The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast   Table   rises  to 
remark  that  the  essence  of  real  democracy  "is  not 
in  forms  of  government,  but  in  the  omnipotence 
[24] 


Essential  Congregationalism 

of  public  opinion  that  grows  out  of  it."  *  Our 
leaders  should  always  catch  the  potent  enthusi- 
asms of  this  method,  for  our  people  never  will 
yield  an  inch  in  the  direction  of  any  other  method. 
You  can  do  what  you  will  with  Congregational- 
ists  whom  you  can  convince  and  persuade,  but 
you  have  no  other  hope. 

Let  us  notice  how  much  is  involved  in  this 
method.  The  point  to  be  reached  in  every 
practical  issue  is  twofold:  (a)  Ac-  Majority  and 
tive  agreement  of  a  majority,  and  ^1"°"*^ 
(b)  acquiescence  and  cooperation  of  the  minor- 
ity. This  is  the  lowest  point  of  public  opinion; 
until  you  have  reached  this,  you  have  no  force 
for  starting  the  issue  before  you.  And  this  ma- 
jority agreement  and  minority  acquiescence  may 
be  a  very  low  point  indeed  and  equally  weak 
force.  On  the  other  hand,  the  crystallization  may 
take  place  at  high  temperature,  generating  irre- 
sistible energy,  whether  with  large  or  small 
majority. 

Our  theory,  however,  is  unanimity,  not  major- 
ity and  minority.     We  seek  the  instruction,  con- 
viction and  unanimous  action  of  the  Unanimity  our 
total     constituency     involved.       We  Theory  and 
labor  and  wait  for  this,  believing  in     °   ° 
it,    knowing   it   to   be   the   highest   reservoir   of 
power.     Our  system  stands  for  the  utmost  ab- 
sence of  unwelcome  coercion,  though  it  should 
be  but  the  carrying  away  of  a  small  minority  by 
'  The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,  p.  35. 
[25] 


Congregational  Administration 

a  great  majority  on  a  trivial  issue.  And  we  be- 
lieve that  what  is  true  and  wise  ought  to  be,  and 
at  length  will  be,  unanimously  accepted.  We  are, 
on  the  other  hand,  quite  accustomed  to  the  power 
of  minorities  to  hinder  or  to  mar,  even  to  hold 
the  real  truth  and  carry  it  finally  to  victory. 
They  can  delay,  prevent,  or  render  futile  the  tru- 
est or  wisest  measures,  and  have  been  known  to 
do  so.  They  can  enforce  their  will  on  the  princi- 
ple of  noblesse  oblige;  the  majority  will  wait  for 
time  and  reason,  or  will  even  give  up  the  whole 
issue.  The  minoritv  will  often  split  the  body  or 
withdraw  rather  than  acquiesce  in  a  decision  how- 
ever fairly  and  patiently  reached;  and  the  ma- 
jority is  sometimes  right  in  counting  the  loss  of 
the  issue  in  dispute  less  grievous  than  a  breach 
in  the  body.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  these  ad- 
ministrative phases  that  illustrations  are  needless. 
It  often  seems  as  if  Congregational  procedure 
were  by  minorities,  not  by  majorities;  it_js  almost 
true  that  minorities  rule.  The  pursuit  of  unan- 
imity, with  constant  fraternal  regard  for  the 
slow,  the  unwilling,  the  blind,  the  unheeding,  the 
self-conscious,  is  an  ideal  pursuit,  producing  high 
and  generous  character ;  but  its  threat  to  block  all 
progress  must  not  be  endured. 

A  chapter  on  the  virtues  and  duties  of  Con- 
gregational minorities  is  due  in  our  polity  man- 
uals. The  rule  is  not  too  rigid  that  minorities, 
whether  of  one  or  of  hundreds,  should  yield  and 
cooperate  except  in  extreme  cases  of  principle. 
[26] 


Mssential  Congregationalism 

And  it  should  be  added  that  extreme  cases  of 
principle  are  rarer  in  administrative  affairs  than 
heated  litigants  are  apt  to  imagine.  Many  a 
question  of  practical  procedure  is  erected  into  a 
moral  test  of  immortality.  The  conscience  is  a 
different  faculty  from  the  will;  a  moral  judgment 
other  than  an  obstinate  preference.  Great  relief 
is  possible  in  our  polity  at  this  point  of  the  duty 
of  minorities  upon  administrative  measures  which 
contain  no  hint  of  legislative  or  judicial  authority. 
A  fifth  and  final  point  to  consider  respecting 
an  adequate  administrative  system  is  the  import- 
ance of  achieving  national  unity.  I  National  unity 
am  aware  that  some  brethren  who  *°  *®  Achieved 
would  agree  with  most  that  has  been  said  thus 
far  might  take  fright  at  so  ambitious  a  phrase. 
Yet  should  we  not  despair  of  securing  unanimity 
for  this  higher  and  stronger  thing.  The  foregoing 
discussion  has  been  in  vain  if  the  cry  of  danger  to 
our  liberties  is  raised  here.  And  the  appeal  for 
efficiency  is  vain  if  a  denominational  halt  be  called 
this  side  of  an  all-inclusive  and  enduring  unity. 
Mr.  John  Fiske  has  put  our  case  in  a  brilliant 
sentence  in  his  volume,  "The  Beginnings  of  New 
England."  He  says,  "Our  experience  has  now 
so  far  widened  that  we  can  see  .  .  .  that  the 
only  perdurable  government  must  be  that  which 
succeeds  in  achieving  national  unity  on  a  grand 
scale,  without  weakening  the  sense  of  personal 
and  local  independence."  '  Our  Congregational 
*  The  Beginnings  of  New  England,  p.  23. 
[27] 


Congregational  Administration 

problem  could  not  be  better  stated,  only  substi- 
tuting the  word  organization  for  the  word  gov- 
ernment —  "the  only  perdurable  organization 
must  be  that  which  succeeds  in  achieving  national 
unity  on  a  grand  scale  without  weakening  the 
sense  of  personal  and  local  independence."  Mr. 
Fiske  was  an  old-line  Congregationalist  in  thus 
insisting  on  local  independence  and  a  new-line 
Congregationalist  in  affirming  national  unity. 
We  have  the  independence,  safe  and  stable;  we 
must  achieve  the  unity  if  we  would  endure.  No 
voice  is  clearer  or  stronger  than  Mr.  Fiske's,  but 
the  chorus  is  already  large  and  inspiriting.  The 
Rev.  D.  Macfadyen  in  his  "Constructive  Con- 
gregational Ideals"  gives  us  excellent  statements 
by  himself  and  other  writers.  "Those,"  he  says, 
"who  understand  the  Congregational  ideal  best 
in  England  and  the  United  States  have  main- 
tained ....  that  for  the  expression  of  the 
common  spirit  and  sacrificial  life  of  our  churches 
our  existing  organizations  are  inadequate.  Large 
investments  are  required  for  large  tasks.  As  the 
churches  fir  i  themselves  now  confronted  by 
duties  on  the  scale  of  a  nation  and  an  empire, 
-:  .  .it  has  become  necessary  to  find  suitable 
administrative  and  executive  instruments  for  the 
tasks  which  have  fallen  to  them."  *  Again  he 
speaks  of  certain  addresses  printed  in  his  volume 
as  "alike  in  adopting  what  for  want  of  a  better 
phrase  is  commonly  called  the  statesman's  point 

'Constructive  Congregational  Ideals,  pp. 9-1 1. 
[28] 


Bssential  Congregationalism 

of  view  —  that  is,  they  grasp  the  life  of  the  de- 
nomination as  a  whole  and  try  to  shape  it  in  the 
hght  of  the  higher  politics  of  the  kingdom  of 
God.  ,  .  .  They  assume  that  it  is  possible  to 
prepare  ourselves  both  in  spirit  and  method  for 
a  more  united,  disciplined  and  organized  service 
of  Christ  in  the  nation  and  the  kingdom  of  God 
than  we  have  yet  accomplished."  '  "Who,"  ex- 
claims another,  "shall  demonstrate  the  important 
theorem  —  how  without  abandoning  a  single 
principle  we  shall  gain  firm  cohesion  and 
multiplied  strength;  how  we  may  learn  to  exist, 
no  longer  as  comminuted  particles  which  the 
wind  of  events  may  drive  away,  but  as  a  whole 
mass,  separate  in  its  organization,  but  confeder- 
ate in  its  united  action;  free  from  tyranny  and 
free  from  slavery,  a  great,  united,  cooperating 
Christian  body."  '  "If  Congregationalism,"  con- 
tinues the  same  writer,  "be  incapable  of  a  large 
and  generous  union,  it  lacks  an  important  element 
of  spiritual  power;  whilst,  if  it  be  capable  of  it,  it 
must  needs  put  forth  means  and  agencies  which 
have  hitherto  been  unfamiliar."  ' 

These  quotations  might  be  buttressed  by  many 
more.  We  are  aware  how  frequently  the  sub- 
ject finds  expression  in  our  religious  Toward  unity 
papers  and  programs.  We  are  far  *"^  ^^^^^ 
from  unanimity,  but  we  are  discussing  and  ex- 
perimenting from  Maine  to  California,  and  all 

*  Constructive  Congregational  Ideals,  pp.  17,  18. 
^  Ibid,  pp.  60,  61. 
3  Ibid,  pp.  57,  58. 

[29] 


Congregation al  A dministration 

movement  is  toward  unity  and  order ;  no  instance 
of  the  opposite  procedure  has  come  to  my  at- 
tention. By  an  overwhehning  majority  we  in- 
tend to  achieve  national  unity.  We  Hke  to  feel 
already  the  strengthening  cords  and  bands,  the 
touch  of  shoulders,  the  eye  to  eye,  the  impulse 
of  vast  affairs,  the  thrill  of  being  one  and  mighty. 
Throughout  the  land  we  are  responsive  to  the 
stroke  of  such  words  as  Mr.  Fiske's  upon  the 
Congregational  conscience.  And  it  is  good  for 
us  just  now  to  iterate  and  reiterate  from  ocean 
to  ocean  and  from  lakes  to  gulf  this  call  of  the 
hour,  till  "the  subliminal  self"  catches  the  sug- 
gestion. "The  only  perdurable  organization 
must  be  that  which  succeeds  in  achieving  national 
unity  on  a  grand  scale  without  weakening  the 
,  sense  of  personal  and  local  independence."  This 
is  the  complete  significance  of  an  adequate  ad- 
ministrative system,  one  that  adjusts  us  to  this 
national  and  international  age,  this  interdenom- 
inational and  missionary  age,  this  age  which  reads 
undismayed  the  duty  of  world  evangelization 
and  the  transformation  of  total  humanity  into  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  Though  we  did  not  mean  to 
be,  we  have  been  weak  and  backward,  we  lovers 
of  our  separate  ways ;  we  must  achieve  unity,  and 
coin  our  corporate  power  into  reconstructed  man- 
hood and  social  order. 

Does  it  not  follow  from  the  course  of  our  dis- 
cussion that  Congregationalism  has  a  real  admin- 
istrative problem  to  solve,  the  task  of  constructing 
[30] 


Essential  Congregationalism 

new  and  enlarged  denominational  machinery? 
There  are  times  in  religion  —  and  the  present  is 
one  of  them  for  us  Congregation-   a  Real  Problem 

alistS when    outward    matters   of    in  Administration 

organization  and  method  are  the  necessity  of 
the  hour.  The  criticism  is  neither  false  nor  su- 
perficial that  we  have  confined  ourselves  too  ex- 
clusively to  the  individual  and  spiritual  side  of 
our  church  life.  It  is  always  and  everywhere 
true  that  the  spiritual  is  the  paramount  issue;  it 
is  not  true  always  and  everywhere  that  it  can 
successfully  be  given  exclusive  pursuit.  Spiritual 
forces  have  regard  to  the  fitness  of  human  agen- 
cies. We  may  not  expect  God  to  do  mighty  spir- 
itual works  in  our  deliberate  neglect  of  resources 
and  strategy.  And  we  properly  charge  with 
error  those  who  find  nothing  to  do  in  the  King- 
dom of  Christ  but  to  convert  sinners  by  evan- 
gelistic methods  and  edify  saints  by  spiritual 
instruction  and  moral  suasion.  There  are  magnifi- 
cent and  awful  things  to  do  which  require  more 
exterior  ministration,  such  as  cleansing  filthy 
homes,  running  a  juvenile  court,  electing  clean 
and  capable  civic  officials,  succoring  earth- 
quake-stricken Italy,  distributing  world-wide 
streams  of  religion  charged  full  with  edu- 
cation and  civilized  ways.  Unorganized  men 
or  churches,  taking  hold  as  each  will,  cannot 
do  this  greater  work  and  do  it  all  and 
do  it  all  the  time.  Nothing  can  effect  it  save 
the  studied  array  and  strategic  deployment  of 
[31] 


Congregation al  A dministration 
mighty  forces,  of  all  the  forces  there  are.  This 
is  forgotten  when  in  a  low  day  the  cry  is  raised 
that  nothing  is  necessary  but  more  spirituality 
and  evangelism,  purer  doctrine,  restored  faith  in 
the  Bible,  deeper  loyalty  to  Christ.  These  do  not 
always  come  at  call.  They  are  hindered  now 
by  our  disturbed  and  protesting  attention  to  ad- 
ministration. We  are  not  free-minded  for  our 
spiritual  work.  The  remedy  lies,  not  in  absorbed, 
unorganized  devotion  to  the  spiritual ;  that  would 
throw  us  the  more  out  of  joint  with  the  modern 
world.  It  lies  in  solving  the  outer  problems,  un- 
til soon,  adjusted  in  ways  suitable  to  the  new  day, 
we  find  "a  heart  at  leisure  from  itself"  and  re- 
cover "the  joy  of  the  working." 

Such  development  of  our  administrative  sys- 
tem must  be  the  general  concern.  It  has  already 
Administration  bccu  Hoticed  that  in  a  democracy 
the  General  the  cultivatiuii  of  patriotic  citizen- 
ship and  the  service  of  the  State  are 
universal  duties.  It  has  been  weil  said  that  a 
democracy  never  enjoys  the  rule  of  the  best,  but 
only  of  the  average  man.  Transfer  the  adminis- 
tration to  the  few  best,  and  you  convert  your 
democracy  into  an  aristocracy.  Preserve  your 
democracy  by  all  means,  cultivate  and  qualify 
the  average  ability,  extend  the  general  partici- 
pation. Congregationalists  everywhere  should 
give  its  due  measure  of  thoughtful  effort  to 
polity. 

Nor   is   this   so  superficial   and   unworthy  as 
[32] 


Hssential  Congregationalism 

deemed  by  some.  Its  honorable  character  is  seen 
in  the  State,  where  it  is  accounted  a  principal  de- 
partment of  study  and  action,  one  of     Administration 

the  highest  vocations.  The  states-  worthy  and 
man  and  the  political  economist  are 
not  working  directly  upon  character.  Their  serv- 
ice tO'  manhood  is  indirect.  But  though  they 
hold  no  evangelistic  services,  they  are  endlessly 
evangelizing.  You  do  not  think  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  as  a  mere  administrator  —  the  phrase 
often  becomes  a  sneer  upon  Congregational  lips 
—  nor  Theodore  Roosevelt,  nor  President  Taft, 
nor  Governor  Hughes,  nor  Everett  Colby,  nor 
Uren  of  Oregon ;  nor  in  education,  the  presidents 
of  our  colleges  and  secondary  schools;  nor  in 
our  Church,  Leonard  Bacon,  nor  H.  M.  Dexter, 
nor  A.  H.  Quint,  nor  the  secretaries  of  our  na- 
tional societies.  Administrative  work  done  with 
vision  and  heart  is  worthy  of  the  best  man's  part, 
is  filled  with  the  spirit  of  worship,  serves  the 
Kingdom  of  heaven  at  principal  points,  greatens 
the  servants,  organizes  the  progress  of  mankind. 
Polity  is  intimately  interwoven  with  doctrine,  as 
Professor  Ladd  and  others  have  taken  pains  to 
show.  At  its  source  our  Congregational  organi- 
zation flows  out  of  our  democratic  conception  of 
the  ways  of  God  with  man.  An  aristocratic  and 
mediative  conception  of  the  Holy  Spirit  gives  an 
aristocratic  polity.  Nor  can  the  deep  influence 
of  organization  and  administration  upon  personal 
and  social  character,  in  either  State  or  Church,  be 
[33] 


Congregational  Administration 

overlooked.  We  of  this  land  of  the  free  church 
and  the  free  state  know  what  we  can  do  in  a  few 
decades  in  the  Philippines  for  peoples  just  re- 
leased from  four  hundred  years  of  lordliness  and 
degradation.  Dr.  R.  W.  Dale  wrote  that  questions 
of  organization  and  polity  "'cannot  be  evaded  or 
postponed.  Ecclesiastical  institutions  are  at  once 
an  expression  and  a  discipline  of  the  character  of 
the  churches.  The  connection  between  organ- 
ization and  life  is  never  accidental  or  arbitrary."  ' 
We  ought  not  to  speak  with  a  sneer  or  even  light- 
ness, adds  Mr.  Macfadyen,  of  "mere  matters  of 
organization.  It  would  be  as  reasonable  for  the 
soul  to  speak  of  mere  matters  of  the  body. 
...  It  is  true  that  a  soul  may  live  and  triumph  over 
manifest  infirmities  and  deficiencies;  and  this  is 
very  much  what  the  Congregational  ideal  has  done 
with  its  very  defective  organization  for  more  than 
two  hundred  years.  But  part  of  the  duty  which 
our  churches  owe  to  the  principles  and  ideals  they 
inherit  is  to  give  them  the  solid  assistance  of  an 
effective  business  management  and  practical  or- 
ganization." '  Here,  then,  is  the  need  of  this  hour 
for  Congregationalists  —  "an  adequate  adminis- 
trative system,"  "achieving  national  unity  with- 
out weakening  the  sense  of  personal  and  local  in- 
dependence." In  words  historic  and  immortal, 
"we  can  if  we  will." 


'  Congregational  Church  Polity,  pp.  3,  4. 
*  Constructive  Congregational  Ideals,  pp.  44-47. 

[34] 


LECTURE  II 
MINISTERIAL  LEADERSHIP 


II 

MINISTERIAL  LEADERSHIP 

In  our  Congregational  theory  the  Church  is 
first  of  all,  composed  of  ordinary  men  and  women 
who  love  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  unite  for 
service  in  his  name.  This  theory,  as  held  in  com- 
pleteness and  consistency  by  us,  distinguishes  our 
polity.  Out  of  the  Church  comes  the  specialized 
ministry  of  religion.  Needing  instructors  and 
leaders,  the  Church  lays  hands  oil  a  sufficient 
number  and  puts  them  forth.  They  in  turn  are 
evermore  responsible  to  the  Church  and  depend 
upon  her  for  opportunity  and  resources.  The 
Church  is  first,  the  ministry  second  and  sub- 
ordinate. 

In  practical  administration,  however,  the  min- 
istry leads.  Scarcely  an  individual  church  any- 
where is  organized  apart  from  its  primacy  of 
agency.  The  machinery  of  the  Leadership 
Kingdom  is  in  its  hands  even  to  an  un- 
fortunate degree.  This  leadership  oi  a  class 
of  ^men  is  Inevitable  and  not  to  b^  deplored. 
No  more  than  the  State,  can  the  Church  ^^osper 
save  by  competent  and  devoted  leaders.  The 
primacy  of  leadership  among  practical  problems 
of  administration  needs  emphasis,  but  not  argu- 
ment. Mr.  John  R.  Mott,  in  his  latest  volume, 
"The  Future  Leadership  of  the  Church,"  is  say- 
ing, "Wherever  the  Church  has  proved  inade- 
quate, it  has  been  due  to  inadequate  leadership. 
[37] 


Congregational  /Jdministration 

.  .  .  The  failure  to  raise  up  a  competent  min- 
istry would  be  a  far  greater  failure  than  not  to 
win  converts  to  the  faith,  because  the  enlargement 
of  the  Kingdom  ever  waits  for  leaders  of  power. 
.  .  .  To  secure  able  men  for  the  Christian  min- 
istry is  an  object  of  transcendent,  urgent,  and 
world-wide  concern.  It  involves  the  life,  the 
growth,  the  extension  of  the  Church  ■> —  the  fu- 
ture of  Christianity  itself."  ^ 

At  the  present  moment  we  Congregationalists 
—  and  others  -with  us  —  are  convicted  of  remiss- 
ness and  consequent  weakness  on  this  principal 
point.  Our  problem  of  leadership  is  affecting  to 
an  alarming  degree  our  whole  enterprise.  It  has 
been  for  some  years  a  low  time  with  regard  to 
our  ministry.  Full  ranks  of  young  men  have  not 
been  coming.  Too  few  of  the  best  equipped  men 
have  come.  We  are  painfully  aware  of  a  low 
conception  of  the  ministry  among  college  stu- 
dents. The  phases  and  causes  of  this  situation 
have  been  much  in  print,  and  are  freshly  given 
in  Mr.  Mott's  volume.  There  are  this  year  en- 
couraging signs  that  the  tide  will  make  in  again, 
but  it  is  too  soon  to  predict  this  with  assurance. 

Primary  responsibility  for  its  leadership  rests 
upon  the  Church.  It  may  not  be  discharged  upon 
The  Church  Pri-  the  ministry,  nor  upon  the 
tnariiy  Responsible  young  men  in  colleges,  nor 
even  upon  the  Christian  home.  This  mighty 
institution  named  the  Church,  whose  exist- 
*The  Future  Leadership  of  the  Church,  pp.  3,  4. 
[38] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

ence,  prosperity  and  usefulness  absolutely  de- 
pend, under  God,  upon  its  leadership,  should 
maintain  measures  adequate  to  insure  that  lead- 
ership. Its  best  agency  for  this  is  the  Christian 
home.  At  this  time  the  Church  and  the  home 
are  not  furnishing  the  conditions  and  motives 
which,  when  present,  will  always  carry  a  sufficient 
number  of  their  sons  intO'  the  ministry.  That 
vocation  is  now  discredited  in  the  minds  of  great 
numbers  of  Christian  parents  and  church-mem- 
bers, and  hence  inevitably  in  the  minds  of  the 
boys  and  young  men.  Mr.  Mott's  unequaled  ob- 
servation leads  him  to  testify  that  increasing 
numbers  of  Christian  parents  and  church-mem- 
bers in  the  evangelical  churches  generally  do  not 
care  to  have  their  sons  enter  the  ministry,  are 
not  thinking  them  prayerfully  on  in  that  direc- 
tion, but  are  actively  turning  them  toward  other 
vocations.  This  atmosphere  cannot  be  kept  nega- 
tive, leaving  young  men  unaffected  to  reach  an 
unbiased  decision.  Indeed,  there  is  little  scruple 
about  making  it  affirmative  and  influential.  Un- 
til it  is  corrected  the  best  hope  tarries.  Until  the 
ministry  is  restored  to  its  sacred  place  in  the  re- 
gard of  church-members  and  parents,  no  formal 
measures  can  contend  successfully  for  recruits. 
Nor  is  there  any  correction  of  this  state  of  things 
save  by  what  the  psychologists  are  calling  re- 
education. The  mind  of  the  Church  and  the 
home,  now  working  too  habitually  away  from 
the  ministry,  must  be  restored  to  a  favorable 
[39] 


Congregational  Administration 

habit.  It  is  a  case  for  mental  and  spiritual  heal- 
ing —  disclaiming  the  technical  meaning  of  the 
phrase. 

But  now,  having  laid  this  obligation  where  it 
fundamentally  belongs,  upon  the  Church  as  an 
Ministry  Mainly  institution,  Upon  Christians  and 
Responsible  church-niembers  in  general,  upon 
parents  and  teachers  and  church  officers  in 
particular,  I  feel  like  throwing  it  specifically 
upon  the  ministry  itself.  When  you  are 
not  theorizing,  but  urging  practical  measures, 
you  have  to  say  that  in  every  department  of  hu- 
man activity  results  depend  upon  the  leaders  of 
action.  Theirs  is  the  prime  responsibility  for  the 
long  working  of  cause  and  effect.  The  ministry 
of  the  Church  is  definitely  responsible  for  its 
own  numbers  and  quality.  The  reeducation  of 
the  Church  and  the  home  on  this  subject  is  its 
task.  And  prior  to  that  it  has  to  rectify  its  own 
state  of  mind.  For  at  the  present  time  the  min- 
istry is  not  warmly  accrediting  and  sustaining 
its  own  craft,  is  not  exalting  its  own  vocation,  is 
not  crying  with  an  exultant  challenge  to  the 
young  men,  including  its  own  sons.  Here  as 
elsewhere  statements  must  be  careful,  and  the  ap- 
peal is  to  your  general  observation.  On  that 
basis,  and  on  suggestive  evidence  appearing  time 
by  time  in  our  religious  journals,  are  we  not 
within  bounds  in  saying  that  there  is  in  the  minds 
and  homes  of  ministers  themselves  wide-spread 
reluctance  to  have  their  own  sons  follow  them? 
[40] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

Mr,  Mott  says:  "Even  ministers  and  their  wives, 
in  an  increasing  number  of  cases,  are  not  encoiu-- 
aging  their  sons  to  consider  this  cahing.  Far  too 
frequently  they  positively  discourage  such  serious 
consideration."  '  If  this  is  true,  there  is  much 
to  be  said  in  palliation  and  even  justification  of 
special  cases ;  there  is  also  much  to  be  said  to  the 
Church  about  suffering  such  a  state  of  things, 
such  treatment  of  its  leaders,  as  would  justify 
any  number  of  them  in  reaching  this  state  of 
mind.  But  my  contention  at  this  moment  is  this, 
that  such  a  minister,  or  such  a  group  of  minis- 
ters, is  both  unfit  and  unwilling  to  lead  other 
men's  sons  into  the  ministry,  unfit  and  unwilling 
to  reeducate  the  Church  and  the  home  on  the 
subject.  The  case  must  remain  lean  and  unhope- 
ful so  long  and  so  far  as  the  ministers  of  Christ 
remain  heavy-laden  and  dispirited  with  their 
task,  so  far  as  they  judge  it  by  its  incidentals,  so 
far  as  its  great  visions  fail  them;,  so  far  as  they 
cannot  lay  upon  their  own  sons  first  and  then  on 
others  a  hand  of  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of 
glory.  ^  \ 

And  now  —  for  we  are  in  the  domain  of  ad- 
ministration—  it  is  urged  that  Congregational- 

istS       should       take       constructive    Adequate  Measures 

measures     for     sustaining    their  RecLuired 
ministerial     leadership     at     its     highest     point 
of     efficiency.       We     certainly     have     no     ade- 
quate measures  at  present.    Far  too  little  is  being 
*  Future  Leadership  of  the  Church,  p.  96. 
[41] 


Congregational  Administration 

done,  and  most  of  that  is  volunteer  effort,  partial 
and  unrelated.  The  Congregational  denomination 
as  such,  with  a  national  life  and  world-wide  serv- 
ice, is  conducting  no  apparatus  for  assuring  its 
own  permanent  power  through  adequate  leader- 
ship. It  is  wonderful  that  we  fare  on  as  well  as 
we  do.  But  are  we  not  arriving  at  that  adminis- 
trative consciousness  which  would  take  earnest 
measures  to  restore  conditions  and  develop  pro- 
visions? It  is  time  that  the  Congregational 
Church  undertook  its  ministerial  leadership  in 
large-minded,  far-reaching  and  patient  plans. 

What,  then,  have  we  to  do  that  may  be  said 
to  require  so  much?  We  have,  in  brief  phrase, 
to  reeducate  our  churches,  to  rectify  conditions, 
and  then  to  go  out  after  the  best  young  men  in 
our  colleges  and  homes. 

I.  First  in  the  order  of  a  minister's  career 
stands  his  theological  training.  Our  schools  of 
Congregational  thcology  posscss  the  Confidence 

Divinity  Schools  ^f  churchcs  and  ministry  to 
a  high  degree.  There  is,  of  course,  dis- 
tressed and  militant  criticism ;  there  are  also 
better  grades  of  the  same  fabric,  not  less  firm, 
but  inwrought  with  courtesy,  faith  and  cheer. 
There  are  improvements  and  enrichments  always 
due  in  theological  training.  It  is  desirable  that 
these  be  pressed  upon  the  seminaries,  for  vested 
interests  incline  to  slow  down  into  security  and 
comfort.  But  criticism  and  impulse  are  in  no 
danger  of  failing  from  the  ecclesiastical  earth. 
[42] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

What,  then,  should  our  churches,  as  organized 
into  a  branch  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  do  for 
and  with  the  seminaries?  The  question  of  de- 
nominational control,  perhaps,  comes  first  to 
mind.  There  is  excellent  historical  counsel  on 
this  subject.  It  is  vital  to  both  churches  and  sem- 
inaries to  enjoy  unreserved  intimacy  together. 
The  mutual  benefits  are  too  obvious  for  rehearsal. 
The  seminaries  draw  their  life  from  the  Church 
and  the  Kingdom,  and  exist  solely  to  serve  these. 
Administrative  control  by  the  organized  churches 
is  logical  and  practical,  even  in  Congregational- 
ism; its  absence  looks  strange  to  many  eyes,  but 
this  also  is  very  Congregational.  Local  auton- 
omy here  does  not  imperil  great  interests,  while  it 
makes  for  that  priceless  thing,  the  freedom  of 
the  truth.  Advance  has  come  and  must  come 
through  the  fearless  pioneering  of  men  who  grow 
used  to  the  wide  horizon.  But,  short  of  control, 
the  association  of  churches  and  ministers  with 
the  theological  schools  should  be  perfect,  pro- 
moted on  both  sides  with  perseverance  and  love. 
Each  should  offer  the  other  all  possible  service. 
Each  should  be  sure  of  the  other's  readiness. 
The  active  exchange  should  be  continuous  and 
whole-hearted. 

Given  intimate  association  and  sturdy  criti- 
cism, there  is  but  one  further  requisite  for 
assuring  continuous  improvement  increased 
and  adaptation  in  our  ministerial  Endowments 
training.  That  one  essential  is  ample  resources. 
[43] 


Congregational  Administration 

The  same  old  cry,  to  be  sure,  simply  because 
there  is  no  other  cry  and  no  adequate  re- 
sponse to  this  one.  The  required  advances 
in  training  noiie  see  more  sanely  or  desire 
more  ardently  than  our  seminary  faculties  and 
trustee  boards.  Give  them  power  to  do  always 
the  better  thing,  and  they  will  do  it;  any  timor- 
ous or  indolent  reluctance  is  easily  overcome. 

Down  to  almost  the  present  hour  in  Congre- 
gational administration,  financial  action  has  been 
entirely  local,  individual  and  voluntary.  A  bet- 
ter day  has  dawned.  Witness  our  scheme  of 
proportionate  benevolence,  here  at  last  and  here 
to  stay.  We  are  reducing  to  system  the  use  of 
money  in  the  service  of  God;  the  day  of  senti- 
mental disorder  is  declining.  Into  this  process 
our  theological  institutions  should  be  admitted. 
Endorsement  of  the  seminaries  by  the  National 
Council  and  other  denominational  bodies  as  con- 
spicuous parts  of  our  machinery  requiring  pro- 
vision adequate  to  extreme  efficiency  would  sound 
an  urgent  note  in  the  ears  of  our  generous  givers. 
Enormous  gifts  go  annually  into  education.  No 
proper  proportion  of  these  is  for  theological  edu- 
cation. If  one  or  two  of  our  seminaries  are  am- 
ply endowed  through  private  generosity,  the  rest 
are  straitened  and  strained  well-nigh  to  the 
breaking  point.  Our  churches  want  the  finest 
young  men  out  of  the  best  equipped  colleges  of 
the  land.  They  cannot  have  them  unless  they 
enable  their  professional  schools  to  equal,  in  their 
[44] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

own  department,  the  amplitude,  the  freedom,  the 
pedagogical  quality  to  which  the  young  men  have 
become  accustomed  in  the  colleges.  The  lack 
at  present  is  not  in  the  methods  in  vogue  in  our 
theological  halls,  nor  in  the  men  who  labor  there ; 
it  is  in  the  financial  inability  of  these  alert  and 
eager  men  to  develop  the  methods. 

II.  Considering  conditions  in  the  ministry 
which  need  attention  and  repair,  the  first  is  that  oi 
the  minister's  salary.  This  is  doubtless  to  salaries 
be  regarded  as  the  lowest  thing  of  all  but  it  can- 
no  be  belittled  out  of  sight.  Recently  the  Rev. 
Jonathan  Hardup  and  his  friends  have  been  ex- 
pressing breezy  and  not  at  all  sordid  opinions  in 
our  religious  papers.  The  National  Council  at  its 
Cleveland  meeting  passed  an  earnest  resolution 
that  better  financial  support  of  the  ministry  be 
urged  upon  the  churches.  Several  important  arti- 
cles during  recent  years  in  our  magazine  litera- 
ture have  discussed  this  factor  in  the  situation; 
none  so  frankly  and  justly  as  Mr.  Mott's  volume, 
to  which  frequent  reference  is  being  made  in  this 
lecture.  The  cost  of  education  for  the  ministry 
and  of  living  as  ministers  must  live,  is  steadily 
increasing.  The  special  demands  upon  the  par- 
son's purse  are  not  only  greater  than  formerly, 
but  greater  in  proportion  to  his  income  than  upon 
any  other  person  in  the  community.  His  salary 
has  not  risen  proportionately;  in  many  commu- 
nities it  has  declined.  "Thousands  of  ministers 
receive  stipends  which  amount  to  less  than  the 
[45] 


Congregational  A  dm  in  istratio  n 

wages  of  day  laborers."  Nor  is  the  meager  sal- 
ary always  paid  promptly,  while  some  of  it  is 
never  paid.  This  financial  injustice  constitutes 
a  main  deterrent  from  the  ministry.  It  acts  upon 
the  young  men  themselves,  and  still  more  forcibly 
upon  their  parents.  But  it  were  well  if  the 
churches  could  understand  how  it  acts.  It  is  no 
matter  of  shrewd  commercial  calculation.  In 
this  question  are  involved  high  interests  and  sa- 
cred values,  such  as  a  minister's  financial  integrity 
and  standing  in  the  community,  his  personal 
growth  by  means  of  books  and  meetings  and 
travel,  his  mental  ease  and  freedom  for  the  high 
levels  whereon  lies  the  significance  of  religious 
work,  his  ability  to  create  and  sustain  a  home, 
the  education  of  his  children,  his  provision  for 
sickness  and  old  age.  All  these  and  other  things 
belong  inherently  to  manhood;  they  are  human, 
not  merely  professional.  And  being  human, 
they  are  not  to  be  nullified  by  professional 
conditions. 

Now  the  rub  comes  at  the  point  of  discovery 
that  these  financial  conditions  of  the  ministry  are 
Wrong  unnecessary      and      morally      wrong. 

Conditions  Neither  consecrated  young  men  nor 
their  parents  are  afraid  of  poverty.  Min- 
isters who  are  worth  while  do  not  abandon 
the  ministry  through  love  of  money.  Nec- 
essary and  fruitful  sacrifice  commands  as  much 
heroism  as  ever.  But  the  current  financial 
conditions  of  the  ministry  are  not  necessary,  and 
[46] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

submission  to  them  is  ceasing  tO'  be  heroic. 
"Men,"  says  Mr.  Mott,  "are  not  less  heroic  than 
of  old;  but  they  have  knowledge  and  discern- 
ment, and  they  see  that  it  is  not  poverty,  but  care- 
lessness and  selfishness  that  dictate  the  financial 
provision  for  many  ministers  to-day."  *  This 
means  that  the  pastor's  M-ork  may  lie  among  men 
and  women  who  will  discredit  him  in  advance 
for  accepting  an  unworthy  and  ineffective  situa- 
tion, who  will  be  by  so  much  less  accessible  to 
the  high  impulses  which  he  brings,  who  will, 
worst  O'f  all,  be  so  far  forth  themselves  unfit  to 
constitute  a  sacrificial  force  for  Christ  and  right- 
eousness. Less  wonder,  in  this  view  of  the 
facts,  that  the  young  man  shuns  the  barren 
sacrifice,  and  that  his  parents,  living  in  a 
parsonage,  perhaps,  are  sadly  silent  as  he  turns 
away. 

The  aim  of  this  moment  is  less  to  describe  this 
situation  than  to  urge  denominational  action  to 
correct  what  has  grown  to  be  a  great  how  correct 
wrong.  In  the  unequal  local  con-  the  wrong 
ditions  of  our  churches  the  difficulty  cannot 
be  conquered  separately.  Cooperative  effort 
is  required  upon  a  denominational  and  even 
an  interdenominational  scale.  Example  and 
stimulus  are  given  us  by  our  English  breth- 
ren. The  Congregational  Union  of  Eng- 
land and  Wales  at  its  meeting  in  May,  1909, 
adopted  with  enthusiasm  a  plan  for  raising  and 
'  Future  Leadership  of  the  Church,  p.  93. 
[47] 


Congregational  A  dministration 

administering  "the  Central  Fund  for  Ministerial 
Support."  The  amount  to  be  raised  is  not  less 
than  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  pounds.  It 
will  be  vested  in  The  Congregational  Union  of 
England  and  Wales,  Incorporated,  and  be  con- 
trolled by  the  Council  of  the  Union  in  accordance 
with  the  careful  terms  of  the  Central  Fund 
Scheme.  The  object  is  "the  better  support  of 
the  recognized  ministry  of  the  Union,  un- 
til an  adequate  minimum  stipend  shall  be 
secured  for  all  accredited  ministers  in  charge," 
after  which  the  Fund  shall  also  be  available  for 
grants  to  ministers  temporarily  without  charge 
and  ministers  superannuated.  The  Union  has 
taken  this  radical  step  believing  "that  once  this 
primary  problem  is  satisfactorily  dealt  with,  the 
seriousness  of  other  denominational  difficulties 
will  be  largely  relieved."  It  may  be  added  that 
the  Baptist  body  in  England  has  formulated  an 
equally  thoroughgoing  provision  for  ministerial 
support.  These  examples,  afforded  by  bodies 
standing  equally  with  us  for  local  autonomy, 
we  Congregationalists  ought  soon  to  imi- 
tate. Our  primary  problem  is  the  same  and 
calls  for  similar  denominational  action.  Yet 
even  then  it  will  remain  inadequate  to  repair  in- 
sufficient salaries  out  of  a  national  Congrega- 
tional treasury.  The  trouble  is  enormously 
augmented  by  sectarianism  and  the  financial 
waste  in  overchurched  communities.  We  must 
agree  with  Mr.  Mott's  conclusion,  when  he  says : 
[48] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

"Nothing  is  clearer  than  that  the  different  Chris- 
tian communions  should  deal  thoroughly  with  the 
problem  of  insuring  adequate  salaries  for  their 
ministers,  and  that  the  various  Christian  bodies 
unitedly  should  agree  on  a  policy  which  would 
do  away  with  the  unnecessary  multiplication  and 
unwise  distribution  of  churches."  ' 

III.  Close  to  this  matter  of  adequate  salaries 
lies  that  of  putting  within  the  reach  of  our  min- 
isters the  means  of  sustaining  their  "The  Doom  of 
mental  and  spiritual  power.  In-  leadership" 
creased  salaries,  even  if  they  came  at  once 
wherever  needed,  would  not  obviate  this 
further  requirement.  The  draught  upon  the 
pastor's  thought  and  vitality  is  incessant  and  un- 
calculating.  His  sustained  intellectual  production 
is  equaled  by  no  other  man  in  the  community. 
His  sympathies  may  never  cease  tO'  flow,  for  hu- 
man need  holds  the  spigot  open  night  and  day. 
It  is  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  who  says,  better 
lose  a  pint  of  blood  than  have  a  nerve  tapped. 
Dr.  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall,  in  a  lecture  from  this 
platform,  thus  presented  in  thrilling  words  "the 
doom  of  leadership" : 

"He  who  has  borne  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day  learns 
in  bitterness  of  soul  the  doom  of  leadership.  To  stand 
in  the  midst  of  the  ecclesia,  with  the  ordinary  vicissitudes 
of  man's  life  transpiring  upon  one's  self  from  day  to  day, 
its  variations  of  mental  activity,  its  episodes  of  spiritual 
depression,  its  yoke  of  earthly  care,  its  fettering  relation- 
ships, and  yet  to  behold  a  thousand  souls  assembled  and 
waiting  for  inspiration  from  one  soul ;  to  be  conscious  per- 

*  Future  Leadership  of  the  Church,  p.  94. 

[49] 


Congregational  Administration 

petually  of  this  silent  demand  upon  one's  selfhood ;  to  know 
that  life  must  be  maintained  at  the  giving  point,  at  the 
point  of  spiritual  exaltation,  where  influence  is  generated 
for  the  uplift  of  many  souls ;  to  look  into  the  faces  of  men 
and  women  gathered  in  the  house  of  God,  and  to  see  in 
some  the  hunger  of  expectation  that  must  be  fed,  in  others 
the  absence  of  energy  that  must  be  supplied  —  that  is  the 
doom  of  leadership."  * 

Every  faithful  pastor  is  consciously  living  this 
doom;  many  are  living  it  with  a  disheartening 
sense  of  untimely,  unforeseen  and  unnecessary  de- 
feat. Within  a  few  weeks  a  pastor  in  New  Eng- 
land has  been  reported  unable  to  buy  a  single  book 
since  his  graduation  from  the  theological  school 
several  years  ago.  It  is  a  confession  of  gathering 
tragedy.  The  greater  tragedy  is  found  in  the 
large  numbers  of  such  pastors  dwelling  amid  the 
dulness  of  church-members  who  do  not  buy 
books  themselves  and  do  not  realize  the  min- 
ister's need.  You  may  find  in  every  state  num- 
bers of  pastors,  not  all  so-called  home  mission- 
aries, who,  not  one  year,  but  year  after  year,  can- 
not afford  to  attend  their  State  Conference  and 
often  are  embarrassed  to  attend  their  local  As- 
sociation. Again  the  laymen  who  never  think  of 
going  are  blind  to  the  worth  of  such  privileges 
to  the  pastor's  brain  and  heart. 

These  are  two  main  points  among  others  in 
which  our  ministry  suffers  and  declines.  Cor- 
porate duty,  ecclesiastical  strategy  and  brotherly 
love  unite  in  demanding  organized  effort  to  turn 
back  this  ebbing  tide  of  power.  Nor  should  it 
'  Qualifications  for  Ministerial  Power,  p.  173. 
[50] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

be  done  with  an  eye  solely  to  individual  pastors, 
though  with  personal  regard  for  each  one.  It 
must  be  the  action  of  a  great  branch  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  providing  for  its  own  leader- 
ship for  the  ends  of  the  Kingdom.  We  cannot 
let  our  leaders  go  unnourished.  We  cannot  af- 
ford to  leave  our  corporate  life  in  the  hands  of 
weak  men ;  and  the  case  is  worse  when  inherently 
strong  men  go  weak  through  lack  of  sustenance 
than  when  weak  men  are  enabled  to  do  their  best ; 
it  is  the  latter  situation  on  which  the  divine  bless- 
ing may  be  expected. 

If  it  be  asked  what  can  be  done  on  this  line, 
the  answer  is  in  part  ready;  correspondence 
courses  of  study  and  reading,  sum-  Practical 
mer  schools  or  institutes,  circulating  Measures 
libraries,  pastoral  tours  through  remote  re- 
gions, such  as  have  proved  so  profitable 
in  New  York  State,  pastoral  exchanges  be- 
tween centers  and  circumference.  A  great 
body  of  churches  administering  cordially  such  a 
purpose  will  not  be  at  a  loss  for  timely  measures. 
Pastors  who  are  unable  to  buy  books  must  be  pro- 
vided with  them  by  gift  or  loan.  Pastors  whose 
studious  opportunities  were  brief  and  habits 
poorly  formed  must  be  given  further  training. 
Pastors  who  cannot  reach  the  stimulating  atmos- 
phere of  our  Congregational  meetings,  our  large 
churches  and  our  mighty  cities  must  be  brought 
there  or  have  the  energy  of  these  transported  to 
them.  We  cannot  afford,  for  the  sake  of  our 
[51] 


Congregational  Administration 

corporate  well-being,  in  duty  to  the  Kingdom, 
to  let  our  leaders  stop  reading  and  learning  and 
thinking  and  greeting  the  new  morning  with  a 
cheer.     Hitherto  it  has  been  almost  completely 
left  to  the  individual,  solitary  there  in  his  isolated 
parish.     It  has  been  every  man  for  himself,  and 
when  he  can  no  longer  keep  the  pace,  Christ  have 
mercy  on  him !    A  beginning  of  better  fraternity 
and  strategy  has  been  made.    About  a  dozen  states 
have    arranged    courses    of   reading    which    are 
recommended  to  partially  trained  men,  but  which 
are  confessedly  of  small  value.     There  are  sum- 
mer schools  and  institutes  here  and  there,  use- 
ful, but  limited.     Some  of  our  seminaries  earn- 
estly try  to  make  their  resources  helpful,  as  when 
Andover  assembles  the  home  missionary  pastors 
of  Massachusetts  for  ten  days  of  instruction  and 
spiritual  uplift,  or  when  Hartford  invites  pastors 
and  physicians  to  a  course  of  lectures  on  Religion 
and  Medicine,  or  when  Atlanta  maintains  con- 
tinual plans  which  carry  her  influence  through- 
out the  Gulf  States.     In  many  sections  surely, 
though  I  have  meager  reports  thereon,  at  least  a 
little  is  done  to  give  men  the  privilege  of  attend- 
ing state  meetings  or  district  congresses,  or  tO' 
visit  the  cities,  touch  the  pulse-beat  of  the  great 
churches,    and    catch    step    with    the    marching 
throng.     At  this  moment,  as  often  in  these  lec- 
tures, I  find  myself  speaking  as  a  westerner  in 
eastern  conditions  where  my  words  sound  alien 
and  irrelevant.     Does  any  pastor  in  New  Eng- 
[52] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

land  need  to  be  helped  to  a  city  or  to  a  central 
meeting?  Lacking  railroad  fares,  he  finds  the 
walking  short.  In  California  —  and  to  some  de- 
gree in  other  states  —  we  have  pastors  whose 
fares  to  San  Francisco  are  from  $15  to  $25 
each  way,  and  the  running  time  a  night  and  a 
day.  A  Sunday  exchange  is  far  beyond  reach; 
the  visit  of  a  fellow  minister  rarer  than  other 
theophanies.  Leave  such  pastors  to  themselves, 
and  your  prayers  for  them  ring  hollow.  Leave 
them  to  themselves,  and  your  devotion  to  home 
missions,  to  the  growth  of  Congregational 
power,  to  the  advance  of  the  Kingdom,  lacks 
wisdom  at  a  main  point. 

In  fine,  the  personal  welfare  and  industrial  ef- 
ficiency of  our  ministers  through  the  burden  and 
heat  of  the  day  are  coming  to  form  a  chief  con- 
cern of  our  churches.  In  part  by  increased  sal- 
aries, in  part  by  methods  of  intellectual  and  spir- 
itual supply,  we  purpose  to  do  tardy  justice  to 
those  who  go  out  under  the  crushing  ends  of  our 
common  load,  we  purpose  to  organize  victory 
in  regions  where  we  have  remained  indifferent 
to  inefficiency  or  defeat.  The  National  Council, 
at  its  Cleveland  meeting  in  1907,  projected  action 
along  several  specific  lines  and  appointed  a  Com- 
mission on  Ministerial  Education,  with  which 
our  theological  faculties  are  heartily  cooper- 
ating. 

IV.  When  we  organize  the  case  of  our  pro- 
fessional leaders,  we  shall  not  stop  short  of  an- 
[53] 


Congregational  Administration 

other  provision,  viz.,  that  of  support  in  sickness 
and  old  age.  In  this  we  are  behind  other 
For  Sickness  branches  of  the  Church  —  of  course 
and  Old  Age     ^^^    ^^^ .     ^^^^    jg    corporate    work, 

and  we  have  been  individuahsts.  Now  we  all 
know  in  what  caustic  language  this  matter  can 
be  attacked  by  a  well-to-do  individualist, 
and  in  what  cold  and  unsympathetic  words 
the  argument  can  be  laid  against  pauper- 
izing manhood.  But  there  stands  here  a  problem 
in  righteousness  and  brotherhood,  to  be  solved 
without  prejudice,  with  appreciation  of  fortitude 
and  sacrifice  in  terribly  stringent  conditions,  and 
with  a  sharp  conscience  of  justice  instead  of 
charity. 

What  does  the  Church  demand  of  its  minis- 
ters ?  Nothing,  some  one  replies :  the  young  man 
Ministry  a  who  enters  the  ministry  takes  his 
Vocation  ^^^.j^  risks  and  must  not  complain. 
Happily  this  is  not  the  universal  reply, 
and  yet  many  of  us  have  fallen  in  with 
it,  and  the  age  has  dropped  toward  a  com- 
mercial conception  of  the  ministry.  But  God 
will  never  suffer  the  conception  to  prevail.  If  this 
matter  of  the  Church  and  her  leaders  is  a  busi- 
ness matter,  it  is  spiritual  business.  It  is  engaged 
with  God  upon  the  spirit  of  man.  The  ministry 
is  a  vocation.  The  Church  recognizes  the  divine 
call  and  adjusts  her  call  to  that.  The  Church  can- 
not take  pleasure  in  that  easy  running  in  and  out 
of  the  ministry  of  which  we  see  lamentably  much 
[54] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

to-day.  It  is  not  a  business  or  profession  to  be 
lightly  assumed  with  a  calculating  eye  and  pres- 
ently to  be  discarded  as  unprosperous.  It  is  the 
highest  of  vocations,  to  be  entered  with  a  lifelong 
purpose  and  uncalculating  devotion.  The  Church 
demands  the  entire  life  of  her  ministers,  their 
undivided  attention  and  their  unswerving  purpose 
unto  death;  and  quality  of  ministerial  work  is 
clearly  seen  to  be  in  direct  proportion  to  such  un- 
reserved and  dateless  consecration.  With  less 
than  this  churches  often  put  up,  but  the  Church 
is  never  satisfied.  Really  providential  interrup- 
tions are  understood;  but  the  Church's  concep- 
tion of  the  sacred  calling  stands  at  the  ideal 
height,  and  the  Church's  demands  upon  her  min- 
isters abate  nothing  from  the  man's  total  gift 
of  himself  and  all  that  he  hath. 

Now  the  Church  knows  well  enough  where  this 
brings  a  minister  out  in  old  age.  He  has  made 
no  material  provision  for  himself ;  he  could  not ; 
the  Church  would  not  permit  him ;  it  would  not 
even  allow  him  normal  self-preservation;  he  is 
worn  out  untimely,  and  a  younger  man  is  called 
to  his  parsonage  and  pulpit  —  "Business  is  busi- 
ness!" Oh,  but  our  vaunted  individualism  has 
led  to  such  heartless  evictions  of  faithful  servants 
and  such  shameless  denials  of  corporate  responsi- 
biHty  for  our  brethren!  Even  now,  with  our 
clearer  vision,  we  are  making  no  haste  to  rectify 
our  action,  as  our  state  and  national  funds  for 
ministerial  relief  pitifully  show.  But  the  better 
[55] 


Congregational  Administration 

days  will  come,  more  dutiful  on  our  part  as  a 
church,  more  sustained  and  relieved  for  servants 
of  Christ  worn  out  in  the  warfare. 

It  is  a  day  of  old-age  pensions.  The  British 
and  German  governments  exhibit  them  on  the 
largest  scales,  while  they  are  seen  on  all  sides  in 
smaller  forms.  More  centralized  denominations 
than  ourselves  have  this  provision  in  full  opera- 
tion for  their  ministries.  We  must  follow  them, 
for  we  cannot  come  near  meeting  the  case  by  en- 
larged salaries.  The  Central  Fund  Scheme  of 
the  Congregational  Union  of  England  and  Wales 
already  looks  in  this  direction. 

But  one  thing  we  must  cease;  we  must  cease 
calling  this  a  charity;  it  is  not  charity,  it  is  quid 
Ministerial  Seiief  pro  QUO;  it  is  wcll-eamed  pay- 
not  Charity  ment  for  labor  rendered ;  it  is 
barely  living  wages  for  a  life  clean  fore- 
spent  in  our  service.  Our  gifts  cannot  match 
the  desert.  God  will  assure  "the  wages  of  going 
on  and  not  to  die."  But  let  us  meanwhile  give 
the  bread  and  water,  yea,  the  butter  and  honey, 
in  a  way  worthier  of  us  and  of  them.  A 
comparison  is  sometimes  made,  in  a  way  that 
seems  to  me  mistaken,  between  the  ministry 
and  the  army  and  navy.  There  is  more 
of  a  parallelism  here  than  is  usually  stated.  The 
government  pays  more  adequate  salaries  and  re- 
tires its  offtcers  on  half  pay,  because,  it  is  said, 
the  government  gets  the  total  service  of  the  life, 
whereas  the  Church  cannot  command  this.  I  sub- 
[56] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

mit  that  this  is  blinking  facts  and  obHgation. 
From  the  hour  when  the  young  man  enters  the 
pastorate,  and  shall  we  not  say  when  he  enters 
the  seminary,  the  Church  commands  his  total  sac- 
rificial service  under  a  command  more  regal  and 
a  constraint  more  potent  than  those  of  the  State. 
In  daily  quality,  in  faithfulness,  in  completeness 
of  sacrifice  the  Church  gets  a  service  unmatched 
by  the  State ;  the  State's  servants  give  nobly,  even 
Christianly  in  many  cases,  but  the  Church's  serv- 
ants give  more  divinely,  for  their  lives  run  nearer 
God's.  But  my  point  is  that  you  call  for  their 
all,  and  you  get  it ;  you  get  it;  the  cases  wherein 
you  do  not  get  it  are  beneath  notice.  When,  then, 
the  State's  faithful  servants  are  retiring  in  fair 
measure  of  comfort  on  half  pay,  how  shall  your 
spiritual  servants  fare?  Pittances  doled  out  to 
extreme  cases  of  privation,  and  to  such  only,  can- 
not truthfully  be  called  proper  returns  for  service 
rendered  or  gifts  at  all  worthy  of  the  giving 
Church.  The  trouble  is  not  with  the  committees 
which  administer  the  funds;  the  trouble  is  with 
the  funds.  This  matter  must  be  shaped  up  on 
higher  principles  than  the  mere  prevention  of 
starvation.  Far  more  than  that  is  due  to  the  sick 
or  aged  servant  himself  and  his  family.  And 
beyond  the  obligation  to  him  and  them  stretches 
the  large  matter  of  administrative  wnsdom.  The 
ministry  as  a  factor  in  our  church  life,  deprived 
of  the  means  of  self-provision,  must  not  be  left 
to  run  out  into  an  old  age  beginning  earlier  than 
[57] 


Congregational  Adniinistvation 

in  other  callings  and  wandering  off  into  cool  dis- 
missal, neglect  and  oblivion.  It  is  more  than  in- 
justice; it  is  poor  policy.  The  evils  of  it  do  not 
escape  the  young  men  we  want  in  the  ministry, 
do  not  fail  to  affect  the  total  product  of  church 
work,  and  surely  do  not  meet  the  approval  of  the 
Judge  who  doeth  right. 

I  would  not  be  understood  to  mean  that  the 
Church  should  bring  all  its  ministers  under  the 
working  of  such  a  policy.  It  could  not,  for  they 
•would  not.  Most  of  them  manage  to  escape  this 
recourse.  As  we  do  justice  in  other  respects,  a 
smaller  proportion  will  need  it.  Perhaps  it  can 
one  day  be  brought  well-nigh  to  an  end.  Mean- 
while the  high  potencies  of  Christian  manhood 
will  continue  to  carry  our  ministers  and  their 
families  bravely,  and  for  the  most  part  silently, 
through. 

V.  There  are  other  things  to  be  done  toward 
restoring  our  ministry  to  its  place  of  power. 
General  conditions  vitally  affecting  pastoral  effi- 
ciency, felt  by  many  ministers,  perceived  by 
young  men  looking  that  way,  can  be  much  im- 
proved. Some  of  them  are  actually  better  than 
reported ;  in  these  cases  the  facts  need  to  be  shown 
up. 

Freedom  of  thought  and  speech  is  one  of  the 
points  emphasized  of  late  years  in  most  of  the 
Ministerial  ai'ticlcs  Upon  the  ministry.  The 
Freedom  suppO'Scd  dearth  of  this  freedom  is 
said  to  be  almost  the  chief  deterrent  upon 
[58] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

college    men.      They    get    the    idea    that    the 
ministry   may   not  deal   honestly   and   fearlessly 
with  truth,  following  wherever  it  leads,  uttering 
it  without  fear  or  favor.     They  note  that  even 
yet  ministers  here  and  there  suffer  ecclesiastical 
discipline  for  their  theological  holdings  and  pul- 
pit teachings,  or  move  on  to  escape  disagreement 
with  the  center  aisle.    That  such  things  have  ut- 
terly   ceased    from    the   Congregational    domain 
cannot  be  affirmed.     We  seem  tolerably  unani- 
mous against  iron  creeds  and  the  sport  of  heresy- 
hunting.      We   have   no   tribunals   for   reducing 
domineering  pews,  and  holding  church  commit- 
tees to  honorable  and  considerate  treatment  of 
pastors.      And   we  continue  to   believe   it   more 
suitable,  usually,  for  a  pastor  to  suffer  and  depart 
than  to  wage  even  a  just  and  victorious  warfare 
likely  to  result  in  a  torn  and  bleeding  church. 
But  we,  the  ministry  and  members  of  the  Con- 
gregational churches,  have  it  in  our  power,  first, 
to  improve  still   further  our  conditions  of  free 
faith  and  untrammeled  speech,   and,   second,  to 
make  it  clear  to  all  the  world,  and  to  students, 
that  unhappy  experiences  of  this  kind  are  to  re- 
main as  near  zero  among  us  as  anywhere  in  the 
world  of  free  thought,  and  that  a  young  man  and 
a  minister  would  better  gird  up  his  manhood  and 
march    on    unshrinking    past    this    lion  —  he    is 
chained,  and  most  of  him  is  stuffed. 

Personal  opportunity   for  self-realization  and 
u^^eful  achievement  is  another  point  heavily  criti- 
[59] 


Congregational  Administration 

cized  to  the  detriment  of  the  ministry.  In  many 
departments  of  action  to-day  such  opportunity 
Ministerial  is  magnificent.  Limitless  resources 
Opportunity  in  an  Open  field  challenge  man's 
utmost  aspiration  and  endeavor.  The  minis- 
try appears  to  be  disadvantaged  in  this  re- 
gard. The  high-hearted  young  man  says  he 
doubts  the  open  field,  the  resources  of  action, 
the  progressive  character  of  the  churches, 
the  adequacy  of  church  funds,  the  enterprise  of 
church  plans,  the  breadth  of  view,  the  stride  for- 
ward which  is  SO'  thrilling  in  some  other  lines. 
Now  this  is  a  most  sensitive  point  with  a  normal 
man  up  to  fifty  years  of  age.  The  man  worth 
while  in  the  ministry  demands  first  of  all  the 
chance  of  life.  This  is  the  prime  inquiry;  not 
for  comfort,  or  recognition,  but  a  great  field  of 
freedom  and  resource  whereon  to  render  tO'  God 
the  noblest  account  of  himself.  You  will  not  an- 
swer him  by  pointing  to  a  score  of  our  leading 
churches  with  a  remark  about  room  at  the  top. 
He  is  not  an  individualist.  He  has  accepted  the 
age  of  combination.  He  thinks  the  Church 
should  act  with  as  wide  a  reach  and  as  long  a 
purpose  as  does  industry  or  education  or 
philanthropy  or  statesmanship.  Such  scope  he 
would  prefer  to  find  elsewhere  than  tO'  miss  it 
in  the  ministry.  A  large  fraction,  I  for  one  be- 
lieve a  major  fraction,  of  our  six  thousand  Con- 
gregational ministers  are  already  restive  with  our 
conservative  hesitation  to  adopt  frankly  the  more 
[60] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

efficient  organization.  In  an  age  of  concerted  ac- 
tion they  do  not  see,  among  some  thousands  of 
independent  churches  rather  gingerly  holding 
hands,  a  rich  chance  to  make  full  account  of  their 
lives.  And  they  are  right.  The  opportunity  of 
our  ministry  will  not  be  commensurate  with  that 
in  other  departments  of  modern  life  until  the 
Congregational  churches  have  achieved  "a  na- 
tional unity  on  a  grand  scale"  —  repeating  the 
words  of  John  Fiske  from  the  former  lecture. 
This  is  no  ungodly  lust  after  a  bishopric;  it  is 
the  righteous  and  timely  demand  to  join  a  great 
body  of  men  who  march  out  together  into  the 
great  issues  where  two  put  ten  thousand  to  flight. 
We  have  many  men  who  prefer  to  chase  a  thou- 
sand alone  —  God  bless  them ! 

VI.  It  is  time  to  formulate  what  is  coming  to 
be,  I  believe,  our  all  but  unanimous  conception  of 
the  ministry.  And  here  I  must.  The  congregational 
in  the  interest  of  frankness,  conception 
acknowledge  my  disagreement  with  Mr.  Heer- 
mance,  whose  chapter  on  the  ministry  seems 
to  me  unequal  to  the  rest  of  his  valuable 
volume.  With  many  affirmations  and  denials  in 
this  chapter  all  Congregationalists  are  in  full  ac- 
cord. We  are  as  far  as  ever  from  the  sacerdotal 
idea  of  the  ministry  as  an  exclusive  and  govern- 
ing priesthood.  We  stand  for  "a  ministry,  not 
an  order  of  priests."  We  subscribe  as  heartily 
as  ever  to  the  statement  adopted  by  the  Council 
of  1865,  as  follows:  —  "The  ministry  of  the 
[61] 


Congregational  Administration   ■ 

gospel  by  members  of  the  churches  who  have  jjeen 
duly  called  and  set  apart  to^hat  work  implies  in 
itself  no  power  of  government,  and  ministers  of 
the  gospel  not  elected  to  office  in  any  church  are 
not  a  hierarchy,  nor  are  they  invested  with  any 
official  power  in  or  out  of  the  churches."  But 
this  has  ceased  tO'  be  a  sufficient  statement  of  the 
position  and  character  of  our  ministry.  It  does  not 
lead  logically  into  the  old  pastoral  theory  of  the 
ministry  advocated  by  Mr.  Heermance,  as  earlier 
by  Dr.  Dexter.  That  theorywas  that  jthejninis- 
try  was  no  larger  than  the  pastorate,  that  a  man 
entered_the  ministry  only  by  assuming  thepas- 
torate  of  a  local  church  and  ceased  from  the  min- 
istry jjjgonjaying^^^vnjdiatpa^to^  Involved 
in  this  were  several  things,  some  of  which  have 
permanent  validity,  some  not.  The  minister  was 
chosen  out  of  the  membership  of  the  church  he 
was  to  serve;  or  if  not,  he  must  at  once  become 
a  member  of  it.  Hig  ordination  was  mere  induc- 
tion  into  that  limited  pastorate,  was  of  course  an 
action  of  that  one  church,  and  was  to  be  repeated, 
as  affirmed  in  the  Cambridge  Platform,  if  heaver 
entered  upon  the  pastorate  of  another  church. 
Between  pastorates  he  had  no  standing  as  a.min- 
istej,  though  he  might  be  looked  upon  as  worthy 
and  experienced. 

Now     this     pastoral     theory    became    almost 
at    once    in    early    New    England    too    small    to 
cover   the   facts.      The   churches   held   the   min- 
istry   in    higher    esteem    and    administered    it 
[62] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

upon  a  larger  view.  Ordination  became 
a  ^social  act,  performed  by  representatives 
of  the  churches.     The  ordained    pastorai  ' 

man  was  considered  a  minister  Theory  inadequate  ^ 
beyond  the  bounds  of  his  own  parish,  and 
his  official  acts  properly  ministerial  wher-( 
ever  performed.  In  1812  the  General  Con- 
ference of  Connecticut  asserted  that  the  or-  ( 
dained  man  remained  amenable  to  discipline 
when  out  of  a  pastorate.  Repeated  ordination  ( 
to^the  miiiistry  gave  way  tO'  installation  into  the 
pastorate,  already  a  different  matter  in  Congre- 
gational eyes.  Dismissal  from  a  pastorate  ceas^ 
to  be  deposition  from  the  ministry.  The  close 
of  the  last  pastorate  of  a  lifetime  was  not  ipso 
facto  departure  from  the  ministry.  The  man's 
standing  in  the  eyes  of  men,  his  responsibility  to 
the  Congregational  order,  his  right  to  officiate 
temporarily  in  any  church  that  invited  him  — 
in  short,  his,  full  ministerial_character  and  power, 
both_^in  the  Church  and  before  the  law  of  the  land, 
abode  upon  him,  and  in  their  sacred  folds  was 
he  buried,  however  late  and  full  of  years.  He 
himself,  indeed,  might  lay  off  his  ministerial  char- 
acter by  definite  act  of  withdrawal.  He  might, 
if  unworthy,  be  stripped  of  it,  but,  as  Congre- 
gationalists  have  jealously  protested,  only  by  a 
similar  body  to  that  which  ordained  him,  viz.,  a 
council  convened  for  that  specific  purpose.  This 
is  not  the  practise  of  the  pastoral  theory  of  the 
ministry,  any  more  than  it  is  of  the  sacerdotal 
[63] 


Congregational  Administration 

theory.  Neither,  it  should  be  added,  must  we 
keep  on  affirming  the  obsolete  pastoral  theory  in 
order  to  save  our  practise  from  slipping  over  into 
the  sacerdotal  theory.  Nor,  be  it  further  added, 
is  it  the  Presbyterian  theory.  In  that  scheme 
the  minister  is  not  a  member  of  a  church  at  all, 
but  of  a  presbytery.  He  is  thus  part  of  a  body 
which  is  above  the  churches  and  has  authority  in 
the  churches.  And  it  is  by  this  body  that  he  is, 
humanly  speaking,  made  a  minister.  Between 
this  and  the  Congregational  practise  here  advo- 
cated there  is  a  gap  which  we  have  neither  reason 
nor  willingness  to  bridge.  It  is,  I  believe,  pos- 
sible to  formulate  our  ministerial  theory  and 
Congregationally  safe  to  practise  it  in  accordance 
with  the  larger  facts  thus  presented  and  the 
wider  social  order  of  the  present  day. 

In  our  polity,  then,  the  ministry  is  greater  than 

the  pastorate.     I  like  Dr.  Ross'  putting  of  it  as 

Kingdom    a     function     in    the     Church-Kingdom. 

Theory      It    is    an    Order    or    range    of    service 

in     the     Kingdom     and     the     Church.       It     is 

not    ouside    the    Church,    and   we    rightly    hold 

our  ministers  to  church-membership.       It  is  not 

abo've^  the   Church,    not   a   hierarchy   with   gov- 

,  erning   power    over    the    churches.      It    is    only 

/  by  way  of  the  pastorate  that  it  becomes  official 

I  in  the  churches.     A  minister  must  be  a  pastor  or 

,  be  invited  to  perform  pastoral  service  in  order 

I  to  get  the  office  and  opportunity  of  leadership  in 

\  any  church.    The  ministry,  as  distinguished  from 

[64] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

the  pastorate,  is  to  be  found  not  merely  in  the 
churches,  but  in  and  among  them  in  a  pervasive 
sense.    It  belongs  to  the  churches  in  common,  to 
the    Church    Catholic.      It   is    a    service    to    the 
Church  at  large,  ready  to  define  itself  upon  in- 
vitation into  a  pastorate  of  any  local  church  at 
any  time.     This  distinction  discloses  the  safety 
enjoyed   by   every   Congregational   church   with 
reference  to  the  body  of  men  called  the  ministry. 
No  one  of  these  men,  nor  all  of  them  combined,/ 
can  enter  the  field  of  any  local  church  for  the 
purpose,  or  by  the  pow^r  of  any  official  action,) 
save  upon  that  church's  invitation  and  for  thef 
term  of  that  church's  pleasure. 

Being  such,  the  ministry  is  in  our  Congrega-  , 
tional  view  a  lifelong  function.     We  do  not  hold^ 
that  ordination  confers  an  indelible  character.    It  / 
rather  recognizes  a  divine  call  into  a  sacred  and' 
permanent  vocation.     It  seems  clear  to  us  thatt 
God  has  such  an  enduring  service  of  religion  and 
calls  men  into  it.     It  is  the  number  of  men  called 
of  God  into  the  lifelong  service  of  religion  and 
the  Church  that  we,  in  common  with  all  Chris- 
tians, mean  by  the  ministry.     At  this  point,  _as 
distinctly  as  at  any,   we  repudiate  the  pa_storal 
theory  w^ith  its  temporary  character.     We  mean 
to  ordain  only  such  men  as  have  entered  upon  a 
long  engagement  with  God. 

Let  us,  then,  frankly  accept  the  implications  of 
this  conception.  We  ordain  a  man  to-  the  ministry 
of  Jesus  Christ ;  we  install  him  into  the  pastorate 
[65] 


Congregational  Administration 

of  a  particular  church.  We  should  no  longer  hesi- 
tate_at  genera]  ordination  to  the  ministry  apart 
Implications  from  installation  into  a  pastorate. 
There  is  no  reason  in  the  character  of  Congrega- 
tional ordination,  though  there  may  be  special 
and  personal  reasons,  against  taking  the  graduat- 
ing class  of  any  seminary  and  ordaining  them 
together  in  one  great  day  to  the  Christian  min- 
istry, to  go  their  several  ways  into  pastorates 
or  evangelism  or  religious  education  or  the  mis- 
sion field  as  the  Spirit  may  lead  them.  In  parts 
of  our  country,  perhaps  not  here  in  New  England, 
we  are  frankly  practising  such  general  ordina- 
tion. And  so  logical  and  practical  is  it,  that  it 
seems  likely  to  win  its  way,  aided  by  the  modern 
decline  of  installation  and  the  increasing  brevity 
of  formal  pastorates. 

f     We  should  also  cease  to  claim  for  the  local 
,  church  the  exclusive  right  to  ordain.     That  be- 
/  longs  with  the  pastoral,  not  with  the  Kingdom 
I  theory  of  the  ministry.     The  right  of  every  church 
'  to  invite  any  man  to  officiate  as  its  pastor  is  not 
to  be  denied,  nor  its  right  to  call  a  council  to  or- 
dain a  candidate.     The  Congregational  churches 
may,  indeed,  prefer  to  retain  this  method  of  get- 
ting at  the  ordination  of  new  men.     But  let  us 
discharge  our  minds  of  the  fiction  that  the  mean- 
ing of  this  method  is  that  ordination  is  the  pre- 
rogative of  a  single  church,  a  sacred  part  of  its 
wonderful   autonomy,   while  the  cooperation   of 
other  churches   in  ordination   is  social  courtesy 
[66] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

and  a  good  display  of  church  fraternity.  It  is 
time  to  hold  and  practise  the  larger  idea  that 
the  Cqngregationa]__  Church  —  Congregational 
Churches,  Tf  the  phrase  is  preferred  —  provides 
itself,  or  themselves,  with  a  ministry.  The 
ordination  of  a  candidate  is  the  act  of  the  Church 
at  large,  performed  by  the  churches  of  a  vicinage 
acting  coordinately  and  representing  not  a  single 
church  but  the  denomination.  Nor  need  we  wait 
for  the  individual  church  to  initiate  the  procedure 
and  give  the  churches  right  and  occasion  to  or- 
dain. Ordination  should  be  by  that  body,  namely, 
the  local  association  of^  churches,  to  which  we 
safely  entrust  the  standing  of  ministers ;  and  the 
association  should  be  ready  to  meet  for  ordina- 
tion at  the  call  of  its  own  officers,  upon  the  re- 
quest either  of  a  local  church  or  of  the  candidate 
himself.  And  even  if  ordination  by  a  council  of 
churches  is  still  preferred,  it  should  be  as  compe- 
tent and  orderly  for  an  association  of  churches 
as  for  a  single  church  to  call  that  council.  The 
provision,  be  it  repeated,  of  an  unfailing  line  of 
men  discharging  the  ministerial  function  in  the 
Kingdom  and  the  Church  is  the  duty  and  pre- 
rogative of  the  Church,  or  of  the  churches  cor-  ^ 
porately,  not  singly. 

This  may  sound  heretical  to  many  mature  and 
ecclesiastically  jealous  Congregational  ears.  It 
may  therefore  be  necessary  to  congregational 
protest  once  more  that  this  is  strategy 
not  a  process  of  Presbyterianizing  the  Con- 
[67] 


Congregational  Adininistraiion 

gregatioiial    ministry.       It    will    not    have    es- 
caped attention  that  the  self-control  of  each  local 
church    still    remains    uninvaded.      Though    the 
churches  act  corporately  in  filling  the  ranks  of 
the  ministry,  they  cannot  thrust  a  single  minister 
into  the   pastorate  of  any   church  or   withdraw 
a    pastor.      Our   ministers    remain   members   of 
local  churches  and  so  are  amenable  to  ordinary 
church  discipline.     A  church  is  as  free  as  ever 
to  advance  one  of  its  own  members  for  temporary 
service  in  its  own  pulpit,  as  free  as  ever  to  re- 
quest   other   churches    to    unite    in   ordaining   a 
promising  candidate.     And  ordination  by  local 
association,  which  will  be  brought  forward  in  an- 
other lecture,  is  no  less  completely  in  the  control 
of   the  churches  than   is  ordination  by  council. 
The  larger  conception  of  the  ministry  does  not 
elevate  the  ministry  above  the  churches,  nor  give 
it  power  over  the  churches.     And  be  it  further 
-protested  that  here  is  no  attempt  to  produce  a 
,  new  conception  of  the  Congregational  ministry 
I  or  to  alter  our  Congregational  practise.     The  at- 
'  tempt  is  to  state  clearly,  albeit  with  cordial  ap- 
proval, what  is  believed  to  be  the  increasing  be- 
lief and  practise,  the  truer  and  foreordained  idea. 
It  is  offered,  too,  as  a  most  significant  element  in 
our  denominational  reconstruction.    The  achieve- 
ment of  a  national  unity  involves  such  enlarged 
administration  of  the  ministry.    And  there  exists 
no  more  important  point  in  Congregational  states- 
manship.    The  welfare  of  our  churches  and  the 
[68] 


Ministerial  Leadership 

fruitage  of  their  work  depend  under  God  upon 
their  ministerial  leadership.  The  full  ranks,  per- 
sonal quality  and  efficiency  of  that  leadership  de- 
pend upon  the  most  commanding  conception  of 
it  wrought  out  into  the  most  liberal  and  engaging 
opportunity  of  service.  Here  is  our  supreme 
strategy.  There  is  all  to  gain  and  nothing  to 
lose  in  it.  It  makes  for  manhood,  vision,  power. 
The  ministry  wants,  not  to  be  carried,  but  to  be 
challenged  and  enabled.  There  is  no  danger  of 
enfeebling  and  pauperizing  such  a  body  of  Christ- 
called  men.  Give  them  room  and  resources. 
Then  make  your  scrutiny  of  candidates  search- 
ing, your  selection  rigid,  your  demands  heavy, 
the  battle  fierce  all  the  day  long,  the  sacrifice  a 
whole  burnt  offering;  these  men  will  keep  full 
ranks,  will  fight  the  fight,  will  finish  the  course, 
will  keep  the  faith,  —  and  with  God  be  the  rest! 


[69] 


LECTURE  in 
FORMS  OF  LOCAL  FELLOWSHIP 


Ill 

FORMS  OF  LOCAL  FELLOWSHIP 

EsSENTiAiv   Congregationalism   resides   in   the 
local  church.     If  we  try  to  state  our  polity  in  a 
single  sentence,  we  must  affirm  the  native  right  of  ^ 
individual  Christians  to  organize  themselves  into' 
a  church,  sovereign  in  its  private  life  and  unit-^ 
ing  with  other  sovereign  churches  in  voluntary ( 
forms  of  fellowship  and  work.     It  is  in  the  local, 
church  not  as  an  isolated  and  self-sufficient  in- 
teger, but  as  a  social  being  and  member  of  a  body, 
that  we  find  the  essence  of  our  Congregational 
order.     Our  tersest  characterization  must  have 
room  for  our  social  forms.     Rising  thus  in  the 

local     church     and     moving    out-     Distinctive   Feature 

ward,  our  order  is  seen  to  dif-  of  congregational 
fer  radically  from  polities  whose 
essence  lies  in  an  authoritative  hierarchy.  But 
careful  words  are  necessary  to  differentiate  it 
from  polities  whose  source  and  direction  agree 
with  ours.  It  is  important  to  get  into  view,  over 
against  Presbyterianism  for  example,  just  what 
we  must  stand  for  and  all  we  need  to  stand  for. 
I  should  state  this  essential  distinction  thus :  Coii- 
gre^ationalism  stands  and  must  stan^for  direct 
democi-acy  in  the  local  church  and  absence  of 
authority  in  the  fellowship  forms.  Such  double 
statement  may  seem  to  many  unnecessary.  It 
is  admitted  that  either  half  involves  the  other. 
[73] 


Congregational  Administration 

Direct  democracy  in  the  local  church  means  free- 
dom from  all  coercion  from  above.  The  absence 
of  authority  from  the  whole  fellowship  system 
guarantees  independent  popular  action  in  the  local 
church.  Yet  it  seems  well  to  utter  both  points 
in  a  working  statement  of  our  polity.  For  we 
are  self-conscious  and  distressed  at  both  points. 
We  have  to  lay  stress,  now  on  the  one,  and  then 
on  the  other.  A  platform  two  planks  deep  feels 
firmer. 

The  phrase,  pure  or  direct  democracy  in  the 
local  church,  may  appear  to  miss  the  point.  Our 
Local  Church  a  historic  words  have  been  "the 
Pure  Democracy  autonomy  of  the  local  church."  We 
have  meant  by  these  w^ords  real  and  entire  self- 
government.  That  has  seemed  the  precise  point 
to  guard,  the  proud  distinction  of  our  democratic 
churches.  Many  are  satisfied  to  assure  the 
churches  this  freedom  from  outside  interference. 
It  matters  not  under  what  forms  each  sovereign 
church  may  conduct  its  private  life.  Dr. 
]\Tackennal  deemed  it  sufficient,  "if  it  be  recog- 
nized that  the  government  of  each  particular 
church  is  in  its  membership."  Without  obscur- 
ing this,  may  we  not,  in  thesc^  days  when  our  un- 
invaded  self-control  is  secure,  put  our  local  life  in 
some  richer  phrase,  such  as  direct  democracy?  An 
addition  of  meaning  is  not  denied,  is  intended 
rather,  but  not  a  substitute  principle;  for  the  es- 
sence of  democracy  is  free  popular  self-cuntrol. 
No  attempt  is  made  to  alter  Congregational  prac- 
[74] 


Forms  of  Local  fellowship 

tise,  but  only  to  characterize  it.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  bare  autonomy  has  been  our  fighting  Hne. 
Behind  that  hne  our  church  methods  have  agreed 
upon  more  than  sheer  freedom  to  do  as  each  hked. 
If  a  church  here  and  there  chose  to  commit  its 
annual  procedure  to  an  authoritative  session,  the 
rest  of  us  did  not  count  that  good  Congregation- 
alism ;  it  was,  so  far  forth,  straight  Presbyterian- 
ism  in  local  administration ;  it  delegated  authority 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  people.  We,  the  onlook- 
ers, took  refuge  in  the  principle  of  auton- 
omy, initiated  no  action  against  that  church,  and 
waited  for  time;  but  we  were  not  satisfied.  It 
was  a  case  of  autonomy,  but  it  was  not  good 
Congregationalism. 

It  is  now  entirely  safe  to  withdraw  all  but  the 
sentinels  from  the  fighting  line  of  bare  autonomy. 

We     could     throw     the     total     force    More  Than  Bars 

back  there,  armed  cap-a-pie,  at  a  Autonomy 
bugle  call,  but  it  is  cold  ground  to  hold  idly  night 
and  day.  In  inside  practise  we  stand  for  that  which 
is  signified  by  the  phrase  "direct  democracy." 
The  Congregational  churches  are  those  which  do^ 
as  they  like,  indeed,  with  none  to  say  them  nay, 
but  which  like  to  handle  local  affairs  by  direct 
popular  action.  We  are  used  to  membership 
franchise  and  universal  participation  in  church 
administration.  We  call  our  important  business 
meetings  according  to  legal  forms;  other  meet- 
ings we  convene  informally,  perhaps  at  the  close 
of  midweek  prayer  meetings.  In  all  cases  we, 
[75] 


Congregational  Adminisiraiion 

the  people,  do  business  at  first-hand  on  the  basis 
of  equal  rights  and  duties.  This  is  not  other  than 
autonomy;  it  is  more  than  autonomy.  It  is  the 
Congregational  practise  of  autonomy.  This  ad- 
dition to  bare  autonomy  deserves  to  be  inserted 
in  our  statement  of  Congregational  principles 
and  our  characterization  of  Congregational  prac- 
tise. It  is  too  central  to  be  omitted.  It  ought 
also  to  be  contended  for,  and  restored  wherever 
impaired.  There  are  one  or  two  lapses  from  it 
which  may  be  mentioned  here. 

In  the  first  place  our  direct  democracy  too  often 
suffers  at  the  hands  of  pastors  or  standing  com- 
Autocratic  mittees.  It  is  easy  for  some  pastors  to 
Officials  make  themselves  almost  the  whole 
thing,  the  sole  administrators — in  blunt  term, 
autocrats.  Many  cases  of  such  autocracy  are  but 
mildly  guilty,  the  church  not  only  making  no 
outcry,  but  welcoming  the  relief.  There  are, 
however,  heinous  cases  of  tyranny  on  the  part 
of  strong  men  who  are  determined  to  have  their 
way.  All  pastors  should  remember  that  the  peo- 
ple  rule  in  our  polity,  and  the  people  should  suffer 
no  pastor  to  forget.  The  Congregational  pastor 
is  neither  ruler  nor  hired  servant.  He  should 
neither  lord  it  over  the  flock,  nor  do  their  work 
for  them  at  market-place  wages  for  a  definite 
time.  He  is  the  elected  leader,  whose  duty  is  to 
lead  and  train.  He  will  do  well  to  have  con- 
spicuous among  his  working  principles  this  one, 
that  he  will  do  nothing  which  he  can  get  any  one 
[  76  ] 


Forms  of  Local  Fellowship 

else  to  do.  It  is  his  business  to  secure  the  widest 
distribution  and  most  effective  discharge  of__Chris- 
tian  service  and  church  administration.  The 
church  well-trained  and  led  feels  no  sense  of 
helplessness  when  it  sorrowfully  surrenders  its 
pastor  to  another  field. 

Scarcely  less  uncongregational  and  undemo- 
cratic is  the  assumed  domination  of  a  church  com- 
mittee. A  recent  case  of  it  has  been  reported  to 
be  as  flagrant  as  this,  that  the  decision  of  a  board 
of  trustees  was  enforced  against  the  majority  ac- 
tion of  the  church.  Responsibility  for  such  an 
offense  must  be  divided  between  the  board  that 
arrogated  the  authority  and  the  church  that  suf- 
fered it  to  do  so.  No  Congregational  church 
should  allow  any  issue  to  be  carried  beyond  its 
own  immediate  reach  or  counter  to  its  own  de- 
cision. Nor  should  any  pastor  or  church  officer 
ever  try  to  thwart  the  popular  will  or  to  proceed 
without  it. 

The  other  impairment  of  our  direct  democracy 
is  the  ecclesiastical  society.  How  this  arose  out 
of  the  early  union  of  Church  and  Ecclesiastical 
State,  and  how  it  has  persisted  in  Society 
New  England,  though  hardly  known  from  the 
Hudson  River  to  the  Pacific,  need  not  be  related. 
This  parish  system  withdrew  secular  affairs  from 
the  management  of  the  church  into  the  control 
of  a  small  body  of  men  who  might  or  might  not 
be  members  of  the  church.  ToO'  often,  in  the 
Unitarian  controversy  which  smote  New  Eng- 
[77] 


Congregational  Administration 

land,  they  were  not  members.  The  church  had 
no  standing  before  the  law;  legally  the  society 
was  the  church.  The  great  majority  of  church- 
members  were  thus  debarred  from  exercising  in 
a  main  section  of  church  affairs  their  native  right 
to  handle  their  own  business.  A  curious  paradox 
appeared  here.  The  original  contention  that  citi- 
zens of  a  town  should  not  be  taxed  for  the  min- 
ister's salary  without  being  represented  in  the 
business  of  the  church  led  to  the  debarment  of 
the  great  majority  of  contributing  church-mem- 
bers —  all  the  women  and  many  of  the  men  — 
in  order  to  admit  into  business  management  the 
few  men  who  were  contributors  without  being 
church-members. 

Relief  has  come  through  laws  in  all  the  states 
providing  for  the  direct  incorporation  and  legal 
standing  of  the  church,  with  the  consequent  con- 
trol of  all  its  business.  Under  this  provision  the 
transfer  from  the  society  to  the  incorporated 
church  has  proceeded  slowly.  I  am  interested 
now,  not  in  presenting  the  actual  situation, 
but  in  urging  that  this  parish  system  is  a 
serious  impairment  of  that  direct  democracy 
which  is  our  very  life  and  to  which  we  insist  upon 
conforming  our  Congregational  order.  A  church 
is  competent  indeed  to  commit  its  affairs  to  a 
small  body  of  inside  and  outside  males  called  the 
society,  or  to  continue  to  leave  its  affairs  in  their 
historic  hands.  It  is  the  way  in  which  our  New 
England  churches  have  actually  been  compelled 
[78] 


Forms  of  Local  Fclloivship 

to  live.  But  it  is  not  proper  Congregationalism; 
it  is  a  weakness  in  the  very  citadel  of  power,  the 
local  church.  It  is  to  the  honor  of  our  Congre- 
gational character  that  damage  so  slight  and  in- 
frequent has  resulted  from  a  dual  system  of  which 
it  has  been  forcibly  said,  "No  other  churches 
anywhere,  under  any  polity,  were  ever  more 
completely  in  subjection  to  a  power  largely 
outside  and  independent  of  themselves.  .  .  . 
The  result  of  union  with  the  State  was  that 
the  Church  was  bereft  of  liberty  and  independent 
life." ' 

Turn  now  to  the  other  half  of  our  statement 
of  essential  Congregationalism,  namely,  the  ab- 
sence of  authority  from  our  Authority  Absent  from 
fellowship    forms,    or   the   sub-    congregational 

stitution  of  public  opinion  for  ^^""^^'^^p 
authority  in  those  forms.  This  may  seem  to  be 
the  main  point  in  our  polity  and  the  best  way  to 
put  it.  We  have  been  very  assertive  of  local  in- 
dependence. Such  assertion  of  right  often  sounds 
combative;  it  certainly  has  often  been  divisive 
among  brethren.  Is  it  not  preferable  to  use  a 
phrase  which  faces  the  other  way?  Absence  of 
authority  from  our  fellowship  forms  is  a 
joint  phrase.  We  utter  it  together  in  that  cor- 
porate capacity  against  which  our  churches  have 
hurled  their  bolts  of  autonomy.  It^  affirmatively 
dis2Lyows_Jhat  dread  monster,  authority.  It 
frankly  adopts  public  opinion  as  its  working 
*  Ross,  Church  Kingdom,  pp.  331,  332. 
[79] 


Congregational  Administration 

force.  It  leaves  the  local  church  secure  in  free- 
dom and  democracy.  This  is  all  that  our 
churches  demand.  This  being  assured,  based 
upon  our  mutual  trust,  we  are  ready  to  develop 
our  voluntary  fellowship  forms  unto  full  effi- 
ciency. We  never  have  been  unwilling  to  frame 
the  larger  union  and  perform  the  wider  service; 
we  have  only  waited  to  be  sure  of  our  way. 
Agreeing  that  our  larger  life  is  to  be  void  of 
coercion,  we  hesitate  no  longer,  as  is  shown  by 
the  universal  interest  now  given  to  administrative 
reorganization. 

Note,  then,  our  present  problem  in  terms  of 
our  two  main  principles,  independence  and  iel- 

independence  in  lowship.  The  former  is  as  price- 
Local  Field  legg    ^g    g^g,.^    ^^^    j^    jg   f^j^^jjy   ^^^ 

forever  secure.  Its  sphere  and  scope  have  shrunk 
in  our  modern  social  conditions,  though  the  in- 
terests which  lie  therein  never  can  lose  their  pri- 
macy. The  inmost  parts  of  the  spiritual  service 
which  produces  individual  salvation  and  parish 
ministration  continue  to  be  discharged  by  the 
churches  one  by  one.  Our  combined  work  rests 
heavily  upon  that  which  the  churches  must  con- 
tinue to  do  mainly  alone. 

The  limits,  however,  of  the  strictly  local  field 
are  suprisingly  narrow.  Cooperation  has  now 
a  large  place,  even  in  the  spiritual  work  just  re- 
ferred to.  Revival  work  is  now  largely  done  in 
cooperation.  No  large  city  should  remain  un- 
provided with  a  federated  parish  system  resem- 
[80] 


Forms  of  Local  Fellozvship 

bling  that  of  the  New  York  City  Federation.  And 
when  you  think  of  it,  how  Httle  can  a  local  church 
properly  do  in  entire  disregard  of  the  common 
good!  All  private  affairs  are  matters  of  com- 
mon concern.  The  election  of  a  pastor  or  a  dea- 
con, the  budget  for  the  new  year,  plans  of  local 
work  — all  such  things  affect  the  sisterhood  of 
churches.  And  that  church  is  contributing  most 
to  the  Kingdom  which  in  all  these  things  called 
local  and  private  is  sensitive  to  the  wider  interests 

and  needs.  .  .  . 

Beyond     the    circumscribed     local    activities, 
which  are  properly  left  to  each  church  alone, 
stretches  away  the  common  field  cooperation  Beyond 
which  must  be  worked  in  union.  ^*"=^ 
Just  here  occurs  the  mistake.    Too  often  our  in- 
dependence has  meant  the  right  to  work  our  sep- 
arate wills  out   in  the  larger  domain.     It  was 
natural  enough,  for  our  church  work  was  obliged 
to    begin    and     continue     long    without     ways 
for   laboring  together.      But  that   time   is   now 
past.     We  agree  that  the  local  organization  and 
most  of  the  parish  ministration  are  best  handled 
by  the  single  church.     Let  each  church  continue 
to  elect  its  own  officers,  care  for  its  own  property, 
and  sustain  the  various  forms  of  worship  and 
helpfulness.    But  out  in  the  larger  region,  m  the 
affairs  which  cover  a  city,  a  county,  a  state,  a 
o-reat  section,  or  the  whole  country  —  out  there, 
what  right  has  a  church  to  do  its  separate  will? 
It  was   Dr.   Quint,   one    of   our   ablest   ecclesi- 
[8i] 


Congregational  Administration 

asticians,  who  said,  "It  is  manifest  that  no  church 
can  rightly  assume  to  do,  without  consultation, 
what  may  affect  the  character  and  work  of  the 
churches  in  general." '  There  still  are  pastors 
and  churches  declining  to  cooperate  in  plans  that 
would  adequately  cover  a  city,  persistently  turn- 
ing their  sole  and  singular  work  out  into  the 
city  wherever  they  choose  v/ith  small  regard  to 
fellow  laborers.  In  one  of  our  strategic  centers 
the  pastor  of  a  leading  church  has  consistently 
declined  parish  cooperation.  He  said  recently 
to  a  brother  pastor,  "I  propose  to  attend  strictly 
to  my  own  church,  and  I  advise  you  to  do  the 
same."  Such  independence,  persisting  in  separ- 
ate action,  is  now  outdated.  The  social  age  is 
in  full  swing.  Without  losing  individual  initia- 
tive we  must  unite.  Without  neglecting  the 
strictly  local  work  we  must  organize  our  churches 
for  effective  labor  in  the  wider  field.  Out  there 
independence  must  yield  to  fellowship.  Minis- 
ters must  learn  to  be  colleagues  and  colaborers. 
Churches  must  learn  the  same  lesson.  Our  pres- 
ent concern  is  not  the  safeguarding  of  independ- 
ence, but  the  development  of  fellowship. 

The  problem  of  the  hour  may  be  stated  thus : 
Given  independence,  how  much  fellowship  can 
How  Much      we  develop  ?     There  have  been  times 

Fellowship        ^i^gj^  ^j^^^y  f^^g^l  y^g  ^^j^gj.  ^^^^^,  (.j^^^ 

a  fair  measure  of   fellowship,  how  can  we  se- 
curely  establish    independence?     Until    freedom 
'  Dunning,    Congregationalists  in  America,  p.  494. 
[82] 


Forms  of  Local  Fellowship 

is  won,  all  sacrifice  must  serve  it,  all  other  good 
must  wait.  Fellowship  is  the  greater  good,  but' 
only  if  it  be  of  freemen.  The  field  has  swept  on-/ 
ward.  Sacrifice  now  belongs  to  fellowship.  In-' 
dependence  must  not  be  impaired;  it  never  will( 
be.  We  are  free  and  independent  churches. 
How  much  can  we  rejoice  in  one  another?  How 
much  can  we  do  in  union?  How  shall  we  freely 
organize  in  order  to  manifold  our  service  to  the 
Kingdom?  All  would  work  out  grandly  if  Con- 
gregationalists  would  unanimously  adopt  this  so- 
cial purpose,  would  take  local  independence  for 
granted,  would  quietly  sustain  their  local  life, 
and  would  turn  their  main  administrative  atten- 
tion to  fellowship.  We  should  find  the  wisest 
forms  and  methods,  and  our  missionary  work 
would  leap  forward.  Any  one  familiar  with  our 
state  meetings  or  our  National  Council  can  pre- 
dict the  relief  and  the  release  of  energy,  if  all 
should  sit  together  taking  freedom  for  granted, 
too  sure  of  it  to  assert  it,  trusting  one  another 
without  suspicion,  absorbed  in  love  and  strategy. 
"It  is  time,"  writes  another,  "to  answer  the  ques- 
tion. Upon  what  terms  is  it  possible  for  Congre- 
gationalism to  become  a  manifested  power? 
But  that  can  never  be  till  we  have  learned  that 
independency  is  not  an  ultimate  object,  but  only 
the  means  to  a  higher  end."  ' 

Proceeding    from   the    local   church    into   our 
fellowship  forms,  the  ministerial  association  may 
»  Macfadyen,  Constructive  Congregational  Ideals,  p.  59- 
[83] 


Congregational  Administration 

claim  a  passing  notice.  It  might  be  called,  as  it 
has  been,  a  voluntary  social  club,  without  admin- 
Ministeriai  istrative  significance,  save  for  the  im- 
Associations  portant  fact  that  it  has  held  in  its 
hand,  to  the  present  hour  in  some  sections,  prime 
interests  of  the  churches,  namely,  the  licensure 
of  candidates  and  the  standing  of  ministers.  As 
long  as  this  is  so,  every  member  is  responsible 
to  the  association  for  his  ministerial  character 
and  the  association  must  answer  to  the  churches 
for  all  its  members.  A  body  with  such  respon- 
sibilities cannot  be  called  a  social  club,  and  must 
not  decline  to  hold  its  members  to  moral  and 
professional  standards.  But,  being  a  purely  min- 
isterial body,  it  never  can  properly  represent 
democratic  churches.  Beyond  New  England  it 
has  small  place  in  the  denomination.  In  many 
locahties  it  has  never  existed;  elsewhere  it  has 
disbanded  or  been  merged  with  Monday  minis- 
ters' meetings.  "Ministerial  associations,"  wrote 
Dr.  Ross,  "are  temporary  in  our  polity.  They 
were  the  stepping-stones  in  this  country  between 
the  independency  which  relied  on  the  State  and 
associations  of  independent  churches.  They  se- 
cure the  fellowship  of  the  clergy,  not  of  the 
churches,  except  through  their  pastors."  ' 

The  association  or  conference  of  churches,  on 

the  other  hand,  is  taking  its  place  at  the  head 

of  our  line  O'f  fellowship.     It  is  truly  and  closely 

representative  of  the  churches.    It  is  the  churches 

'  Ross,   Church  Kingdom,  p.  294. 

[84]' 


Forms  of  Local  Fellowship 

of  a  convenient  vincinage  organized  together  and 
meeting  by  elected  delegates  for  mutual  help  and 
united  labor.  The  members  of  the  Associations 
association  are  the  churches ;  the  indi-  °^  churches 
vidual  delegates  are  simply  members  of  the  meet- 
ing. Here  commences  our  indirect  or  representa- 
tive democracy.  Not_until  the  nineteenth  century 
came  the  hour  of  association  of  churches.  They 
would  Tm^e  arisen  in  the  seventeenth  century 
save  for  opposition  by  the  ministry.  In  1641 
Alassachusetts  Colony  adopted  a  code  of  laws 
permitting  both  ministerial  and  church  associa- 
tions. In  1662  its  legislature  ordered  a  synod 
to  settle,  among  other  questions,  this :  "Whether, 
according  to  the  Word  of  God,  there  ought  to 
be  a  consociation  of  churches,  and  what  should 
be  the  manner  of  it."  "This  question,"  say 
the  Colonial  Records,  "was  unfortunately 
returned  to  the  Secretary  of  State  by  the 
elders."  "The  elders  stifled  this  attempt  of 
the  laymen  for  church  association,"  is  a  later 
comment. 

The  association  of  churches  at  once  approved 
itself  and  spread  rapidly.  It  now  covers  all  our 
churches.  And  so  true  is  it  to  Congregational- 
ism, that  its  function  has  been  steadily  enlarged, 
till  it  has  come  to  be  our  pivotal  fellowship  body. 
As  concerns  service  in  the  Kingdom  of  God,  the 
association's  field  remains  small;  our  extensive 
ministries  must  go  through  state  and  national 
ao-cncies.  But  as  concerns  orderly  and  re- 
[85] 


Congregational  Admin istration 

sponsible  organization,  for  both  safety  and  sig- 
nificance, the  local  association  is  for  the  present 
the  most  important  of  our  fellowship  bodies.  I 
would  therefore  bespeak  for  it  the  unfailing  in- 
terest of  churches  and  ministers.  Because  the 
association  is  the  churches  in  immediate  organi- 
zation, able  to  report  and  appeal  instantly  back 
to  the  churches,  liable  to  be  called  to  prompt  ac- 
count by  the  churches,  prepared  to  carry  oiit  the 
will  of  the  churches  into  wider  fields  of  fellow- 
ship, it  is  both  safe  and  important  to  magnify 
this  body. 

In  its  enlarging  scope  and  function  the  asso- 
ciation is  charged  first  with  the  welfare  of  its 
Welfare  of  own  cliurchcs.  Our  churches  have 
Its  Churches  \^q^y\  dcscrtcd  by  one  another.  Our 
independence  has  been  shamefully  unfraternal. 
Under  our  competitive  system  hundreds  of  our 
churches  can  barely  make  a  living;  some  that 
ought  not  to  fail  starve  to  death.  Some,  badly 
located  or  abandoned  by  the  currents  of  social 
life,  ought  to  remove  or  disband.  Some  that 
are  doing  noble  work  might  be  helped  to  multi- 
ply the  service  and  increase  the  joy.  Our 
churches  are  slow  to  learn  what  it  means  to  be 
members  one  of  another. 

Included  in  the  association's  duty  is  the  reli- 
gious condition  of  the  county  or  district,  so 
far  as  this  belongs  to  Congregationalists.  The 
questio'U  is,  What  is  our  part  in  the  religious 
welfare  of  this  district,  and  how  shall  our 
[86] 


Forms  of  Local  Fellowship 

churches,  organized  in  the  association,  perform 
their  part?    Enter  here  the  duties  of  church  ex- 
tension        and         evangehzation.       church  Extension 
Why    should    a    new    church    be        and  Evangelization 

formed  when  and  where  a  few  individuals  would 
like  to  have  it?  Every  Congregational  church 
in  the  district  is  affected  by  each  new  church  or- 
ganized. The  latter  will  draw  members  from  one 
and  another  church,  and  probably  will  appeal  to 
the  churches  singly  and  to  the  home  missionary 
society  for  financial  aid.  It  is  time  all  over  the 
land  for  church  extension  to  proceed  upon  advice 
and  cooperation,  and  for  the  power  of  Christ 
to  be  carried  throughout  a  city  or  a  county  by 
the  united  churches.  Bay  Association  of 
churches  in  California  covers  a  large  county,  in- 
cluding the  cities  of  Berkeley,  Oakland,  and 
Alameda.  New  Haven  West  Association  in 
Connecticut  covers  the  city  and  county  of  New 
Haven.  These  bodies  are  competent  to  spread 
the  united  power  of  all  the  Congregational 
churches  over  the  spiritual  needs  of  those  coun- 
ties. I  do  not,  of  course,  forget  specially  organ- 
ized church  extension  societies  and  city  mission 
societies,  which  have  the  advantage  of  restricted 
aim  and  special  pleading.  But  I  believe  that  the 
associations  of  churches  can  well  handle  such 
work  until  the  local  fields  grow  so  dense  as  to 
require  separate  organizations. 

For  this  work  of  church  welfare  and  exten- 
sion an  advisory,  prudential  or  missionary  com- 
[87] 


Congregational  Administration 

mittee  of  the  association  is  sufficient.  One  such 
association  acts  through  a  prudential  committee, 
Prudential  or  whosc  function  is  described  as  fol- 
Advisory  lows  in  the  coustitution :  "It  shall  be 

Committees  ^i^g  ^^^y  Q,f  |.j-,g  Prudential  Committee 
to  promote  the  welfare  and  fellowship  of  the 
churches  of  this  association  in  all  possible  ways, 
and  especially  as  follows:  (a)  To  consider  the 
opportunities,  responsibilities  and  resources  of 
the  churches  of  this  association,  and  to  study  the 
-whole  field  with  reference  to  the  best  distribution 
and  employment  of  forces;  (b)  To  receive  any 
requests  for  counsel,  to  offer  advice  in  needy 
and  difficult  cases,  and  when  necessary  to  report 
to  the  association  ways  and  means  for  meeting 
such  cases  and  execute  the  association's  pro- 
visions for  relief;  (c)  To  initiate  and  report  plans 
for  new  enterprises  and  forward  movements,  in 
short,  all  that  pertains  to  the  extension  of 
Christ's  kingdom  throughout  the  county.  And 
to  make  its  work  effective  the  Prudential  Com- 
mittee is  hereby  empowered  by  the  churches 
through  the  association  to  assume  from  year  to 
year  whatever  financial  responsibility  may  be 
necessary."  This  particular  committee  has  led 
the  association  to  serve  the  churches  in  several 
important  advances,  such  as  the  union  of  two 
churches,  the  erection  of  a  new  meeting-house, 
the  purchase  of  a  parsonage,  the  organization 
and  housing  of  a  new  church,  tKe  removal  of 
a  church  to  a  better  site  —  these  along  with 
[88] 


Forms  of  Local  Fellowship 

lesser  acts  of  helpfulness  and  a  constant  brooding 
watch-care  over  the  churches  and  their  united 
fields.  The  committee  answers  every  call  upon 
its  service  and  is  expected  to  proffer  advice  and 
initiate  work  at  its  discretion.  It  would  be  hard 
for  men  who  appreciate  the  labor  of  such  a  com- 
mittee to  think  any  association  in  the  country 
well  off  without  one,  or  in  lack  of  some  adequate 
provision  for  such  service. 

Another  charge  upon  the  local  association  is 
the  orderly  standing  of  churches  and  ministers. 
Dr.  Quint  wrote:  ''No  Congrega-  ^^^^^^^  ^, 
tional  church  is  independent.  It  can  churches  and 
become  so  by  withdrawing  from  its  Ministers 
affiliations  with  the  other  churches,  but  in  that 
case  it  ceases  to  be  a  part  of  the  Congregational 
body." '  The  Council  Manual,  issued  by  the 
National  Council  as  its  expression  of  Congrega- 
tional organization,  explicitly  includes  member- 
ship in  a  local  association  as  requisite  for  a 
church  which  would  secure  and  maintain  Con- 
gregational character  and  standing.  Every  Con- 
gregational church  is  thus  amenable  to  the  de- 
nomination, and  every  association  is  responsible 
for  the  good  standing  of  its  churches.  The  same 
is  true  of  every  Congregational  minister.  His 
good  name  and  commendation  to  the  churches 
used  to  be  in  the  hands  of  ordaining,  installing 
and  dismissing-  councils.  In  the  decline  of  in- 
stallation, ministerial  standing  has  passed  over  to 
*  Dunning,  Congregationalists  in  America,  p.  492. 
[89] 


Congregational  Adniinistration 

the  associations  of  churches.  We  have  reached 
such  proportions  that  we  can  secure  good  order 
in  no  less  methodical  way.  The  National  Coun- 
cil has  affirmed  the  conditions  of  ministerial 
standing  to  be  threefold : 

(i)   Membership  in  a  Congregational  church; 

(2)  Ordination  tO'  the  Christian  ministry; 

(3)  Membership  in  that  body,  in  most  states 

the  local  association  of  churches,  which 

holds  the  standing  of  ministers. 

Now  for  the  safe  and  orderly  procedure  of  our 

denominational  life  throughout  this  great  coun- 

_  ,  ,  .  ^.  try  this  matter  of  the  good  stand- 
Local  Association    _  ■'  ... 

Responsible  for  ing  of  churchcs  and  ministers  is 
Good  standing  extremely  important  and  gives 
prominence  to  the  fellowship  body  charged  with 
it.  I  believe  that  we  are  wise  in  laying  it  upon 
a  local  body,  composed  of  the  churches  and  min- 
isters themselves,  closely  conversant  with  all  per- 
sonal character  and  church  conditions,  meeting 
regularly  and  as  a  matter  of  course,  easily  meet- 
ing in  special  session  either  to  correct  irregular- 
ities or  to  perform  specific  tasks.  The  state  con- 
ference is  less  suited  to  be  the  custodian  of  min- 
isterial and  church  standing.  Nor  is  there  any 
local  body  adequate  to  bear  this  obligation  save 
the  association  of  churches.  The  council  is  fugi- 
tive, while  these  responsibilities  are  permanent. 
The  ministerial  association  is  limited  to  the 
clergy,  while  these  responsibilities  pertain  to  the 
churches  inclusive  of  the  clergy.  The  National 
[90] 


Forms  of  Local  Fellowship 

Council  recommended  that  all  local  associations 
of  churches  so  amend  their  constitutions  as  to 
provide  for  ministerial  standing,  and  that  all 
ministerial  associations  turn  their  members  over 
to  the  church  bodies.  The  transfer  is  already 
well-nigh  universal. 

There  is  one  new  feature  in  the  possible  scope 
and  function  of  the  association  of  churches  which 
I  desire  to  join  with  Mr.  Heermance    ordination  by 
and  others  in  advocating.     It  is  the    Association 
ordination  of_ ministers.     It  seems  to  some  like 
red  revolution  to  carry  over  ordination  from  the 
time-honored  council  to  the  upstart  association. 
But  there  are  reason  and  good  order  in  it.     In 
our  Congregational  history  ordination  by  other 
bodies  than  the  council  is   far  from  unknown, 
while  at  present  there  is  a  distinct  trend  toward 
the  association  of  churches.     Several  State  bodies 
have  recommended  it  in  whole  or  in  part.     And 
those  who  have  considered  it  and  seen  it  work 
cannot  help  believing  that  it  will  gradually  win 
its  way.    It  cannot  be  forced.    Those  who  prefer 
ordination  by  council  are  as  free  as  ever  to  em- 
ploy that  method.     The  change  must  come  as  a 
recognized  improvement. 

It  is  evident  at  a  glance  that  ordination  by  an 
association  of  churches  is  good  Congregational 
ordination.  No  man  ordained  by  The  Best 
such  a  body  would  have  his  minis-  ^'^^^^'^^  ^ody 
terial  standing  questioned  anywhere  in  the  land. 
The  association  is  a  better  body  than  the  council 
[91] 


Congregation al  Administration 

for  this  service,  inasmuch  as  it  includes  all  the 
churches  of  the  vicinage  and  has  permanent  life 
and  records.  Having  more  time  and  repeated 
sessions  for  its  business,  with  standing  officers 
and  commitees,  it  is  less  likely  than  a  council  to 
perform  a  mistaken  ordination,  while  it  is  always 
at  hand  to  correct  such  an  error. 

"Over  some  case  of  ministerial  delinquency  or 
impotence  we  ask,  Who  ordained  this  man?  A 
council  in  northeastern  Maine  or  southwestern 
California.  Write  that  council  and  charge  back 
its  blunder  upon  it;  bid  it  recall  those  ordination 
papers  and  terminate  the  mischievous  or  in- 
effective career.  Impossible;  the  deed  was  done 
by  an  agency  irresponsible,  because  too  short- 
lived to  be  brought  to  an  account,  created  for  the 
work  of  an  hour  with  endless  consequences,  and 
falling  apart  beyond  recall  before  sunset.  It  gave 
the  ordained  man  the  sole  copy  of  credentials 
good  for  a  lifetime  to  the  ends  of  the  Congre- 
gational earth  and  beyond.  It  sent  no  records 
to  a  responsible  custodian.  And  yet  there  is  a 
thoroughly  Congregational  and  representative 
body,  dignified,  stable,  inclusive  of  all  the  neigh- 
boring churches  and  ministers  and  responsible 
for  all,  possessing  all  the  prerogatives  and  ma- 
chinery for  ordination.  It  writes  such  deeds  in 
permanent  records.  It  is  more  cautious,  because 
it  studies  constantly  the  interests  intrusted  to  it, 
and  because  it  must  answer  any  day  for  the  deeds 
it  has  done.  It  can  be  called  together  as  readily 
[92] 


Forms  of  Local  Fellowship 

as  a  council.     Holding  stated  meetings,  it  need 
not  for  every  case  be  called  in  extra  session." 

The  main  objection  to  ordination  by  associa- 
tion of  churches,  aside  from  sentimental  devotion 
to  the  council,  is  a  fear  of  some  encroachment 
upon  the  liberties  of  the  churches.  Let  us  con- 
tinue to  ordain,  say  the  fearful,  by  the  council 
which  disbands  at  once;  let  us  not  trust  this  prin- 
cipal matter  in  the  hands  of  a  permanent  body 
able  to  act  repeatedly;  independence  is  endan- 
gered by  a  permanent  body.  That  general 
proposition  is,  I  trust,  being  sufficiently  argued 
in  these  lectures.  To  make  a  stand  on  ordina- 
tion seems  to  me  peculiarly  inapt.  There  can 
be  no  threat  upon  liberty  at  this  point;  it  is  too 
brief  and  fleeting.  Time  is  a  necessary  element 
in  tyranny.  Ordination  is  done  and  past  in  a 
day,  else  a  council  never  could  perform  it.  It 
passes  over  into  permanent  ministerial  standing; 
in  that  there  is  time  for  tyranny. 

Suffer  another  moment's  emphasis  upon  our 
present  management  of  the  life  of  our  ministry. 
Licensure,  or  approbation  to  preach,  The  Life  of 
is  in  the  hands  of  the  association  of  °"'"  ^i^i^*^^ 
churches  or  ministers.  Ministerial  standing,  as 
a  permanent  holding,  is  in  the  same  hands.  Cer- 
tification of  that  standing  is  therefore  given  at 
any  time  by  the  association,  and  the  council  is 
no  longer  depended  on  for  a  minister's  creden- 
tials. Virtual  deposition  from  the  ministry  for 
sufficient  cause  is  in  the  same  associational 
[93] 


Congregational  Administration 

hands;  for  while  technical  deposition  is  held  by 
a  council,  the  refusal  of  an  association  to  sustain 
longer  a  minister's  membership  and  standing- 
locks  him,  and  ought  to  lock  him,  out  of  our  pul- 
pits. It  has  always  been  next  to  impossible  to 
secure  formal  deposition  by  a  council;  it  is  now 
rendered  unnecessary  by  the  normal  working  of 
ministerial  standing  in  the  association  of 
churches.  Thus  that  body  presides  over  the 
whole  extent  of  a  minister's  professional  life,  his 
ordination  alone  excepted.  At  that  juncture  we 
turn  to  the  council,  as  though  to  say  that  we  will 
not  entrust  with  this  man's  ordination  the  bcKly 
to  which  we  commit  his  entire  career,  though 
that  body  be  composed  of  the  very  churches 
which  must  in  any  case  perform  his  ordination. 
Safety,  consistency,  fitness  and  all  the  values  of 
good  order  should,  and  I  believe  will,  transfer 
ordination  to  the  association's  hands.  And  this 
is  another  argument  for  locating  the  whole  proc- 
ess of  ministerial  standing  in  associations  of 
churches  instead  of  associations  of  ministers. 

It  remains  to  suggest  that  many  other  things 
hitherto  performed  by  the  council  would  often 

other  Functions  ^^  ^^^"^  "''o^'^  appropriately  and 
for  the  effectively    by    the    association    of 

Association  churchcs.     The  installation  or  dis- 

missal of  a  pastor,  the  organization  or  migration 
of  a  church,  the  union  of  two  churches,  many 
appeals  for  advice  and  material  assistance,  coun- 
sel upon  cases  of  discipline  or  business  difficulty 
[94] 


Forms  of  Local  Fellowship 

—  such  things  belong  more  fitly  to  the  associa- 
tion with  its  system  of  meetings  and  records,  of- 
ficers and  committees.  For,  be  it  said  for  the 
smaller  churches  and  their  pastors  who  shrink 
from  pressing  their  desires  and  rights,  it  is  a  main 
weakness  of  our  council  system  that  it  assembles 
the  "leading  churches"  and  "leading  pastors," 
seldom  including  those  who  would  most  appre- 
ciate participation  in  ecclesiastical  affairs.  These 
fellowship  functions  are  occasions  of  growth  and 
brotherly  love,  as  well  as  service.  It  is  neither 
fraternity  nor  strategy  to  magnify  an  agency 
which  in  the  human  nature  of  the  case  leaves 
many  churches  and  pastors  out  in  the  cold  year 
after  year.  Moreover,  most  of  these  denomina- 
tional occasions  concern  the  whole  circle  of  the 
vicinage,  small  and  large  churches  alike.  It  is 
both  good  Christianity  and  good  democracy  to 
substitute  the  association  of  churches  for  the 
co-uncil  in  these  denominational  activities.  The 
transfer  would  be  one  more  step  in  simplifying 
and  strengthening  our  polity. 

What,  then,  of  the  council,  our  true  and  tried 
servant,  our  familiar  friend,  our  Congregational 
way,  the  habit  of  three  hundred  Permanent  scope 
years  — what  of  this?  No  dis- °^  ^^^^  c°"°°" 
honor  will  be  shown  it  in  the  change.  So  useful 
an  agency  is  it  that  we  should  be  entirely  un- 
willing to  deprive  ourselves  of  it.  It  is  admitted 
that  some  occasions  for  fellowship  can  be  better 
served  by  a  council  than  by  an  association.    Rep- 

[95] 


Congregational  Administration 

resentatives  from  a  larger  neighborhood,  even 
from  beyond  state  boundaries,  are  sometimes 
needed,  as  in  an  extreme  case  of  discipline  or 
financial  distress.  I  have  knoAvn  a  council  to  be 
preferred  for  the  good  reason  that  the  larger  body 
could  not  be  entertained  in  the  small  meeting- 
house. And  a  case  frequently  arises  of  such 
length,  delicacy  or  complexity  as  to  require  a 
small  and  select  council. 

Beyond  these  ordinary  uses,  however,  the  coun- 
cil has  in  our  practise  of  the  Congregational  pol- 
court  of  ity  a  special  function  which  assures  it 
Last  Resort  abiding  honor.  For  this  function  I  like 
the  brief,  trim  phrase,  "court  of  last  resort."  To 
this  title  Mr.  Heermance  and  others  object,  with- 
out suggesting  another  equally  terse  and  ade- 
quate. Having  dismissed  authority  from  our 
total  system,  and  having  committed  our  decision 
to  rational  constraint  by  public  opinion,  it  would 
seem  as  if  no  phrases  could  threaten  our  serenity. 
But  in  whatever  terms  stated,  the  provision  is  a 
real  Congregational  distinction  and  protection. 
We  must  always  have  some  recourse  from  mis- 
takes and  injustice.  If  a  church,  for  example,  or 
a  minister  has  just  complaint  against  the  decision 
of  the  association  of  which  either  is  a  member, 
an  appeal  must  be  within  reach  to  a  judicatory 
regarded  superior,  because  more  disinterested, 
because  concentrated  upon  the  one  issue,  and  be- 
cause advantaged  by  information  of  the  former 
trial.  Refuge  has  not  always  been  found  in  a 
[96] 


Porms  of  Local  Fellowship 

council.  In  early  days  resort  was  had  to  town 
officers  or  the  state  legislature.  In  the  consoci- 
ational  days  in  Connecticut  an  appeal  from  one 
consociation  might  be  presented  to  a  neighboring 
one  in  joint  session;  if  the  two  decisions  coin- 
cided, they  constituted  a  doubly  final  and  author- 
itative settlement  of  the  case.  Both  these  lines 
of  appeal  have  disappeared.  We  look  to  the  State 
no  longer,  save  in  legal  complications.  Nor  do 
we  appeal  from  one  association  or  conference  to 
another,  expecting  the  two  to  play  a  drawn  game 
or  enforce  a  joint  decree.  Least  of  all  do  we 
think  of  carrying  our  appeals  up  to  state  or 
national  bodies.  To  these  we  give  no  legislative 
or  judicial  functions,  and  to  them  present  no 
such  business.  We  thus  have  no  ascending  ju- 
dicial system,  such  as  would  remove  our  difficult 
cases  from  the  vincinage  to  distant  judgment- 
seats.  On  the  contrary,  we  carry  our  appeals 
directly  back  to  the  local  churches.  Our  resort  is 
to  a  council,  that  familiar  immediate  represen- 
tative of  the  churches,  whose  nature  is  to  utter 
the  best  available  judgment  of  the  churches  and 
leave  it  to  be  enforced  by  its  inherent  reason  and 
public  opinion.  If  we  need  a  safeguard  against 
other  polities,  here  is  one.  The  Presbyterian 
may  carry  his  troubles  up  the  line,  to  presbytery, 
synod  and  assembly,  and  accept  the  results  form- 
ulated in  the  distant  judicatories.  The  Congre- 
gationalist  turns  back  to  the  local  churches  whose 
fraternal  advice  is  his  final  dependence.  As  long 
[97] 


Congregational  Administration 

as  this  method  of  appeal  stands,  a  drift  into  other 
poHties  is  blocked.  Equally  blocked  is  a  tendency 
into  any  sort  of  perilous  centralization.  We  may 
freely  develop  the  local  association,  only  keeping 
the  council  behind  it  as  court  of  appeal.  This 
turn  is  pivotal  in  our  polity;  upon  it  we  swing 
back  to  the  pro  re  nata  action  of  the  churches. 
And  should  the  council  come  to  be  mainly  limited 
to  this  function  of  appeal,  it  would  therein  retain 
eminence  and  power  such  as  should  satisfy  its 
most  jealous  advocates. 

Returning  now  to  the  association  of  churches, 
let  me  for  a  moment  urge  the  importance  of 
Uniform  agreeing  upon  a  uniform  terminol- 
Terminoiogy   ^g-y        ^^^     National     Council     has 

recommended  that  our  local  organizations  of 
churches  take  the  name  "association,"  and  our 
state  bodies  be  called  "conferences."  This  is  a 
subordinate  but  not  trivial  matter.  An  incon- 
sistent terminology  causes  confusion  in  any  de- 
partment of  thought  or  action.  Science  corrects 
it  at  every  discoverable  point.  So  does  practical 
wisdom,  bent  upon  improving  methods  and  pro- 
ducing results.  These  are  days  of  the  constant 
migration  of  pastors  and  church-members.  Their 
familiarity  with  our  working  terms  and  methods 
affects  efficiency.  These  facts,  plus  the  increas- 
ing administrative  significance  of  our  ecclesiasti- 
cal bodies,  argue  the  importance  of  uniform 
features  and  phraseology.  In  its  main  lines  our 
work  is  one  and  the  same  throughout  the  land. 
[98] 


Forms  of  Local  Fclljzvshil) 

Local  variety  is  required  only  in  minor  details. 
Preference  for  our  inherited  names  is  natural 
enough,  but  unworthy  to  stand  against  our  desire 
for  united  power. 

In  such  ways  as  have  now  been  indicated  our 
local  fellowship  is  being  shaped.  The  trend  all 
over  the  countr}^  is  to  magnify  the  local  associa- 
tion, composed  of  the  churches  themselves  in 
immediate  union  for  the  common  work  of  the 
vicinage.  Here,  close  to  the  separate  churches, 
in  their  first  organized  body,  we  find  the  safest 
basis  of  good  order.  Here  we  fear  no  danger  to 
our  liberties,  for  these  are  the  very  churches 
whose  liberties  are  precious.  Here  we  have  an 
agency  adequate  to  meet  the  conditions  of  the 
local  field,  competent  also  to  enter  those  wider 
relations  which  remain  to  be  considered. 


[99] 


LECTURE  IV 
STATE  UNIFICATION 


IV 

STATE  UNIFICATION 

The  state  is  as  natural  a  district  for  religious 
as  for  civil  organization.  Interests  and  activities 
of  the  churches  too  large  for  our  local  associa- 
tions, yet  too  restricted  for  national  administra- 
tion, we  handle  statewise.  Thus  we  have  a  state 
organization  in  every  state  and  two  in  California. 
They  have  been  styled  conferences  or  associations 
or  conventions.  To  secure  a  uniform  termin- 
ology the  name  "conference,"  recommended  by 
the  National  Council,  is  being  gradually  adopted. 

The  membership  of  both  local  associations 
and  state  conferences,  which  may  be  discussed 
as  one  question,  presents  difficulties  Local  and  state 
requiring  thought  and  experiment.  Membership 
The  present  variety  is  confusing.  In  some  cases, 
local  or  state,  the  membership  is  limited  to 
churches,  these  being  represented  in  the  meetings 
by  pastors  as  such  and  elected  delegates.  In 
other  cases  ministers,  whether  pastors  or  not, 
have  personal  membership,  with  or  without  vot- 
ing rig^hts;  this  membership,  as  held  and  inter- 
preted in  local  associations,  constituting  their 
ministerial  standing.  There  are  state  bodies 
which  determine  their  own  membership  inde- 
pendently, as  of  course  they  are  free  tO'  do,  while 
others  base  their  membership  upon  the  local  as- 
sociations. Now  similar  to  that  regarding  termin- 
[  103  ] 


C on s.y€ (Rational  Adniinist ration 

ology,  though  much  more  cogent  here,  is  the 
argument  for  uniformity.  Not  until  we  have 
achieved  it,  can  a  minister  or  active  layman,  re- 
moving from  one  state  to  another,  enter  upon  his 
new  relations  unconfused. 

The  first  question  concerns  the  duties  and 
prerogatives  connected  with  ministerial  standing. 
Ministerial  Shall  the  minister's  connection  with 
Membership  and  a  local  association  of  churchcs, 
standing  which  he  is  obliged  to  secure  and 

keep  unsullied,  be  reckoned  as  membership?  If 
so,  what  kind  of  membership,  entitled  to  what 
privileges,  and  charged  with  what  duties?  If  not 
membership,  what  is  it?  Can  sO'  vital  and  re- 
sponsible a  connection,  involving  discipline  for 
cause,  be  ordered  and  insisted  upon  without  being 
accorded  the  status  of  membership?  Ministerial 
standing  is  coordinate  with  the  standing  of  a 
church;  if  the  latter  involves  full  membership  in 
an  association,  with  voting  rights  in  all  meetings, 
should  the  former  be  limited  to  less?  In  this 
matter  is  it  right  to  reckon  a  minister  as  no  more 
than  an  individual  church-member?  The  local 
association  is  the  body  in  and  through  which  de- 
nominational administration  is  carried  on;  shall 
a  minister  have  no  participation  in  administration 
save  as  a  church-member  occasionally  elected  as 
delegate  to  an  association  meeting?  If  a  larger 
share  is  just  or  desirable,  is  it  sufficient  to  give 
him  an  associate  or  honorary  membership,  with 
all  rights  save  that  of  voting? 
[  104] 


State  Unification 

Three  practises  now  in  vogue  among  us  may 
be  stated  as  follows: —  (a)  in  some  associations 
all  ministers  hold  personal  voting  membership; 
(b)  in  other  associations  there  is  no  ministerial 
membership,  but  pastors  are  ex  officio  delegates 
and  voting  members  of  the  meetings;  other  min- 
isters have  no  place  in  any  meeting  save  as  duly 
elected  delegates  of  churches;  (c)  in  still  other 
associations  even  pastors  hold  nO'  ex  officio  place 
in  the  meetings,  but  must  be  elected  as  delegates. 

It  is  easy  to  object  to  any  one  of  these  arrange- 
ments, but  the  most  just  and  consistent  solution 
does  not  instantly  appear.  Ministerial  a  Difficult 
membership,  giving  each  minister,  Solution 
whether  pastor  or  not,  voting  rights  in  every 
meeting,  puts  a  minister  on  a  par  with  a  church, 
gives  him  undue  prominence  in  the  meetings  and 
the  organization  generally,  and  introduces  a 
double  and  disparate  membership.  On  the  other 
hand,  tO'  refuse  ministerial  membership  is  liable 
to  injustice.  For  the  minister,  not  the  pastor 
only,  is  held  under  responsibilities  peculiar  to 
him,  not  shared  by  any  layman,  shared  only  by  a 
church.  We  Congregationalists  —  and  freemen 
generally  —  have  a  very  vital  rubric  entitled 
''taxation  without  representation."  We  feel  like 
insisting  in  simple  justice  that  one  who  is  held  to 
unique  accountability  must  be  given  unique  rights 
in  the  organization  which  holds  him. 

There   are  times   when   ordinary   injustice   at 
this    point    would    be    magnified    intO'    grievous 
[  105  ] 


Congregational  Administration 

wrong.  The  discipline  of  a  minister  as  church- 
member  belongs  in  the  church  which  holds  his 
Complicated  by  membership.  But  his  discipline  as 
Disoipiine  minister    belongs    in    the    associa- 

tion which  holds  his  standing.       It  is  a  grave 
question  whether  he  ought  to  be  held  amenable 
to  disciplinary  action  by  a  body  in  which  voting 
membership    is    denied    him,    and    in    which    his 
fellow  ministers,   likewise  excluded   from   mem- 
bership, have  no  right  to  give  judgment  in  his 
trial.     Discipline  for  delinquency  reveals  the  dis- 
parity between   minister  and   lay   delegate;   the 
latter  the  association  cannot  call  to  account,  his 
case  lying  totally  within  his  own  church.        If 
you  surrender  the  associational  discipline  of  min- 
isters, you  do  indeed  remove  that  difference  be- 
tween them  and  lay  delegates,  but  you  also  throw 
out  the  real  values  of  ministerial  standing.     Un- 
less the  rolls  are  kept  purged  of  delinquents,  it 
is  worth  nothing  to  stand  in  the  lists.      It  is  a 
good   thing   to   withdraw   the   special   privileges 
formerly  accorded  to  the  clergy  and  hold  them 
to  the  common  standards  of  manhood  and  social 
order.      But   when   the   question   concerns   their 
professional  responsibilities,  you  will  find  neither 
ministers  nor  laymen  willing  to  reduce  the  craft 
to  the  lay  level  or  refuse  it  the  standing  commen- 
surate with  its  obligations.     Between  such  depre- 
ciation  and    the   segregation   of   ministers    as   a 
class  or  order  in  their  own  exclusive  associations, 
where  the  church  cannot  pass  upon  their  pro- 
[io6] 


State  UniUcation 

fessional  standing,  there  is  safe  middle  ground. 
The  double  membership  of  churches  and  minis- 
ters disturbs  very  httle  the  thought  of  the 
churches,  and  introduces  no  disorder  into  cur- 
rent affairs.  If,  however,  complete  ministerial 
membership  should  upon  discussion  be  refused, 
then  the  ex  officio  standing  of  pastors  in  the 
association  meetings  has  not  a  little  in  its  favor. 
I  believe  that,  thinking  this  matter  out  through 
some  years  of  experiment,  churches  and  ministers 
will  agree  upon  the  justice  and  desirability  of 
safeguarding  the  rights  and  obligations  pertain- 
ing to  ministerial  membership.  If  it  come  to  be 
regarded  as  a  special  privilege,  it  will  go  and 
ought  to  go.  If  it  turn  out  to  be  justice  and  a 
true  way  of  sustaining  the  high  character  and  se- 
curing the  full  service  of  our  ministry,  it  will  be 
retained. 

A   further   inquiry   concerns   the    membership 
of  the  state  conference,  and  particularly  its  rela- 
tion to  that  of  the  local  aSSOcia-       state  conference 
tions  within  the  state.   At  present        versus  Association 
f  1  •  £■/•  o  1      •  i         Membership 

conferences  dirier.  borne  admit 
every  pastor  as  one  of  the  representatives  of  his 
church,  but  no  ministers  on  any  other  terms. 
Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Nebraska,  California  and 
others  admit  as  members  coordinate  with  the 
churches  all  ministers  who  are  members  of  local 
associations  within  the  state.  This  introduces 
the  dual  membership  again,  the  voters  in  all 
meetings  being  ministers  as  such  and  delegates  of 
[  107] 


Congregational  Administration 

churches.  What  these  states  seem  to  mean  is 
this :  Admitting  the  right  of  the  state  conference 
to  determine  its  own  membership,  it  is  thought 
wiser  to  base  it  directly  and  completely  upon 
membership  in  local  associations.  Upon  this  is 
founded  majority  membership  in  the  National 
Council.  It  is  consistent  and  practical  for  the 
state  body  also  to  rest  its  membership  upon  the 
local  bodies.  The  states  just  named  are  saying 
that  their  state  conference  membership  shall  con- 
sist of  all  the  churches  and  all  the  ministers 
named  in  the  lists  of  their  local  associations. 
The  purpose  evidently  is  to  assemble  the  total 
recognized  forces  of  the  state,  to  apply  the  total 
available  power  at  this  pivotal  point  between  local 
and  national  forms  of  work. 

Conceivably  it  may  still  be  asked  why  the  state 
conference  should,  in  constituting  its  member- 
Higher  Memberships  ship,  refer  at  all  to  the  local 
Rest  on  Good  Standing  associatious.  The  auswcr  is, 
Because  our  Congregational  practise  leaves  in  the 
associations  the  determination  of  the  good  stand- 
ing which  consists  in  membership  acquired  and 
retained.  The  state  conference,  the  national  so- 
cieties and  the  National  Council  then  accept  the 
matter  of  membership  as  settled  and  adjust  their 
practise  thereto.  The  question  then  becomes  one 
as  to  representation  in  these  higher  bodies.  And 
the  two  classes  to  be  represented  are :  —  ( i ) 
churches  and  (2)  ministers,  the  whole  number  of 
the  latter  as  an  ordained  ministry,  not  merely  the 
[108] 


State  Unification 

major  fraction  of  them  as  pastors.  Our  organific 
direction,  as  considered  in  the  first  lecture,  is 
from  below  upward.  The  single  church  is  first. 
The  churches  organize  the  local  association,  and 
make  it  the  corner-stone  of  our  fellowship  struc- 
ture. The  churches  carry  up  to  the  state  confer- 
ence nothing  which  the  smaller  bodies  can  bear 
just  as  well.  And  the  churches  carry  on  to  the 
national  bodies  only  the  still  wider  interests  com- 
mon tO'  the  states.  It  is  admitted,  of  course,  that 
these  adjustments  are  still  sub  judice;  all  meth- 
ods always  are  in  Congregationalism.  But  these 
are  present  phases  and  attempted  interpretations. 
The  wisest  structural  details  will  seasonably  an- 
swer our  united  inquiries.  And  the  denser  states, 
whose  state  meetings  tend  toward  an  unmanage- 
ably large  membership,  may  make  special  contri- 
butions toward  the  solutions. 

Beyond  membership  come  the  two  main  mat- 
ters of  all  —  state  unification  and  state  superin- 
tendence. Consider  first  the  unifying  state 
of  our  total  Congregational  organ-  Unification 
ization  with  its  agencies  and  labors  in  each  state. 
The  National  Council  at  its  Cleveland  meet- 
ing recommended  as  follows  :  —  "That  the  state 
organizations  become  legally  incorporated  bod- 
ies; and  that  under  a  general  superintendent 
and  such  boards  as  they  may  create,  and  acting 
in  cooperation  with  committees  of  local  associa- 
tions and  churches,  they  pro\dde  for  and  direct 
the  extension  of  church  work,  the  planting  of 
[  109] 


Congregational  Administration 

churches,  the  mutual  oversight  and  care  of  all 
self-sustaining  as  well  as  missionary  churches, 
and  other  missionary  and  church  activities,  to  the 
end  that  closer  union  may  ensure  greater  ef- 
ficiency without  curtailing  local  independence." 
Action  of  this  sort  had  been  begun  in  several 
states  prior  to  the  Cleveland  meeting,  and  since 
then  has  been  accelerated  and  extended.  Michi- 
gan was  the  first  state  to  formulate  definite  prog- 
ress toward  a  unity  of  state  work,  with  Wiscon- 
sin and  Northern  California  moving  that  way. 
Ohio  then  outstripped  Michigan,  to  be  herself 
outdone  by  Northern  and  then  by  Southern  Cali- 
fornia. And  now  Wisconsin  and  Michigan  are 
showing  us  all  the  way  unto  complete  unity  of 
state  interests  under  a  single  administrative  head. 
Other  states  in  their  annual  meetings  and  by 
committees  or  groups  of  individuals  are  advanc- 
ing in  this  direction. 

Certain  thoughts  appear  to  be  brewing  in  many 
minds,  somewhat  as  follows :  —  ( i )  It  is  desir- 
state  Consciousness  able  and  really  obligatory  to 
and  State  Eights  unify  our  Congregational 
forces  and  forms  for  superior  efficiency.  (2) 
A  state  consciousness  has  been  born,  and  is 
growing  lustily.  (3)  Within  its  own  borders 
state  administration  is  more  effective  than  na- 
tional. The  former  has  the  advantages  of  in- 
timate knowledge,  close  range,  personal  con- 
tact and  strong  pressure  on  localities,  churches, 
individuals.      (4)   The  right  of  a  state  to  self- 

[IIO] 


State  Unification 

administration  is  superior  to  the  right  of  any 
national  body  to  act  within  a  state's  boundaries. 
Mr.  John  Fiske  says  again,  "Stated  broadly,  so 
as  to  acquire  somewhat  the  force  of  a  universal 
proposition,  the  principle  of  federalism  is  just 
this:  that  the  people  of  a  state  shall  have  full 
and  entire  control  of  their  own  domestic  affairs, 
which  directly  concern  them  only,  and  which  they 
will  naturally  manage  with  more  intelligence  and 
with  more  zeal  than  any  distant  governing  body 
could  possibly  exercise."  '  Thus  to  efficiency  and 
expediency  we  add  state  rights.  Each  fellowship 
body  takes  precedence  of  the  higher  ones.  The 
rights  of  the  state  conference  are  prior  to  those 
of  the  national  bodies.  Nothing  is  left  to  the 
latter  save  what  the  churches  see  will  be  most 
effective  when  handled  nationally.  Thus  our 
Congregational  administration  is  "broad-based 
upon  the  people's  will."  Our  national  organiza- 
tions have  not  always  acted  so;  they  could  not 
until  yesterday,  but  only  to-day  are  they  fairly 
beginning  the  new  ways.  We  are  all  freshly 
realizing  the  supremacy  of  the  churches,  the  rep- 
resentative principle,  and  the  movement  from  be- 
low upward.  There  is  no  danger  of  stripping 
our  national  work  of  its  magnificent  proportions. 
Duty  to  our  splendid  societies  must  be  kept 
aflame.  The  limits  of  state  administration  are 
quickly  reached.  Just  now,  in  the  warmth  of  state 
reorganization,  there  is  special  need  of  steadiness, 

'American  Political  Ideas,  pp.  133,  134. 
[Ill] 


Congregational  Adiiiijiistration 

and  vision.  It  is  easy  for  mortals,  acting  in  what- 
ever capacit}^,  to  groAv  so  intent  as  to  lose  sight  of 
the  greater  horizons.  But  wherever  the  sky-line 
may  be,  here  at  hand  are  the  state  boundaries,  en- 
closing concrete  and  instant  obligations. 

Full  details  cannot  be  given  of  the  reorganiza- 
tion which  has  taken  place  in  the  several  states 
already  mentioned.  Reports  can  be  obtained 
from  the  state  registrars.  At  this  time  it  will  be 
more  profitable  to  present  some  of  the  major  ele- 
ments in  the  process. 

First,  the  incorporation  of  the  state  confer- 
ence. That  it  is  possible  to  incorporate  a  body 
Incorporation  of  of  such  extended  bulk  is  proved 
state  Conference  j^y  ^.j^g  ^^^^  ^^^^^  ^^g  General  Con- 
ference of  Michigan  has  lived  an  incorporated 
life  since  1886,  and  others  from  more  recent 
dates.  Others  still,  like  Ohio  and  California, 
have  secured  incorporation  within  the  last  two 
years.  State  missionary  societies  have  been  cor- 
porations for  a  much  longer  period.  Reasons 
for  this  step  seem  cogent.  Under  such  an  inter- 
pretation of  Congregationalism  as  we  are  here 
submitting,  no  damage  to  our  liberties  need  be 
feared.  The  state  conference  is  simply  the 
churches  themselves,  lacking  all  alien  elements. 
Its  responsibilities  are  changing  and  developing. 
Financial  and  legal  obligations  will  be  heavy  in 
thoroughgoing  state  unification.  The  confer- 
ence, once  incorporated,  is  quite  equal  to  all  re- 
sponsibilities and  opportunities. 
[112] 


State  Unification 

The  state  conference  being  thus  prepared  for 
whatever  may  befall,  the  proposal  is  no  less  than 
to  unify  in  its  hands  and  con-  state  work 
duct  under  its  superintend-  ^"'^"^  *"  conference 
ence  all  the  Congregational  work  in  the  state.  It 
may  be  well  to  repeat  that  the  private  spheres  of 
the  separate  churches  and  local  associations  are 
not  to  be  invaded,  that  only  the  common  work 
laid  out  in  state  proportions  is  in  view,  and  that 
throughout  the  new  method  the  force  continues 
to  be  the  influence  of  public  opinion  and  not  the 
arm  of  coercion.  Under  such  safeguards  the 
states  are  proceeding  to  do  the  thing  which  seems 
good  theory  to  us  all,  to  simplify  complexity,  to 
transform  competition  into  combination,  to  re- 
duce operating  expenses,  to  direct  the  whole  sys- 
tem from  one  office.  It  is  easier  to  state  this  and 
to  cheer  for  it  than  to  achieve  it;  but  it  can 
be  achieved  everywhere.  The  conviction  is 
already  wide-spread  that  the  results  will  be 
cheaply  bought  at  whatever  price  of  labor  and 
patience. 

In  some  states  the  relations  between  state  con- 
ference and  state  missionary  society  present  dif- 
ficulties.   The  latter  body  has  ac-    conference 
quired  a  strong  and  independent     versus 

,-  r  /-v  ,  ■  ,1  1     • ,    1  Missionary  Society 

life.  Our  action  through  it  has 
grown  habitual.  In  some  cases,  Connecticut  and 
California  for  example,  its  relations  with  the 
conference  have  been  vital.  The  conference 
elects  the  directors  of  the  Missionary 
[113] 


Congregational  Administration 

Society  of  Connecticut.  The  General 
Association  of  Northern  CaHfornia  used  to  elect 
the  members  of  its  home  missionary  society, 
while  at  present  the  twenty-one  directors  of  the 
Northern  California  Congregational  Conference 
are  ipso  facto  the  total  membership  of  the  home 
missionary  society,  and  elect  its  directors  from 
their  own  number.  Elsewhere  the  conditions  are 
less  favorable,  the  missionary  society  being  quite 
separate  from  the  conference.  The  question  be- 
ing asked  in  state  after  state  is  this,  Why  should 
not  the  conference  do  its  state  missionary  work 
directly?  The  conference  is  the  churches  organ- 
ized, as  the  Connecticut  constitution  admirably 
puts  it,  "for  the  purpose  of  fraternal  intercourse 
and  cooperation  and  mutual  incitement  in  all  the 
evangelizing  work  of  Christian  churches."  Why 
then  must  it  employ  a  separate  incorporated  body 
and  turn  the  churches'  contributions  into  a  sepa- 
rate treasury?  Moreover,  the  churches  are  in- 
terested in  developing  a  state  superintendency 
much  wider  than  that  hitherto  confined  mainly 
to  home  missionary  work.  Must  there  be  two 
superintendents?  There  need  be  but  one  in  case 
the  state  conference  manages  directly  its  home 
missionary  interests. 

The  issue  here  is  not  yet  so  clear  as  to  induce 
uniform  action.  The  Ohio  conference  has  or- 
various  ganized  its  state  work  into  two  bu- 
Methods  reaus;  of  one  of  these  the  home  mis- 
sionary society  is  a  main  part.  In  Michigan  the 
[114] 


State  Unification 

general  association,  the  home  missionary  society/ 
the  foreign  missionary  society,  and  the  central 
advisory  board  have  all  been  united  into  one  cor- 
poration, the  Michigan  Congregational  Confer- 
ence. For  legal  reasons  the  home  missionary  so- 
ciety retains  a  nominal  existence,  but  within  a 
few  years  may  entirely  disappear.  In  Northern 
California  financial  obligations  compel  for  the 
present  the  retention  of  the  home  missionary  so- 
ciety as  a  separate  corporation.  In  Southern 
California  the  early  disappearance  of  that  society 
into  the  state  conference  has  been  provided  for. 
The  Nebraska  state  body  has  under  consideration 
a  plan  which  merges  the  home  missionary  society 
in  the  conference.  Wisconsin  has  reduced  its 
state  affairs,  including  its  home  missionary  so- 
ciety, to  a  splendid  unity. 

Possible  legal  and  financial  complications  may 
present  in  any  state  grave  difficulties.  Trusts 
must  be  faithfully  administered.  Legal 
Funds  must  not  be  lost  by  unwise  complications 
attempts  to  transfer  them.  Future  gifts  and  leg- 
acies must  not  be  jeopardized.  The  strong  senti- 
ments of  living  givers  must  not  be  shocked.  Such 
considerations  urge  deliberation  until  good  coun- 
sel settles  upon  the  changes  most  certain  to  con- 
serve all  interests.  But  on  the  other  hand  the 
financial  and  legal  forms  become  subject  to  modi- 
fication in  so  far  as  it  appears  that  moral  in- 
tegrity inheres  in  their  general  management  for 
specified  ends  rather  than  in  details  of  method. 
[115] 


Congregational  Administration 

Administrative  forms  are  but  means  of  convey- 
ing spiritual  power.  It  is  the  end  that  is  precious 
to  the  givers  of  money.  And  it  may  transpire 
in  these  state  negotiations  that  a  minority, 
scarcely  numerical  at  all,  but  forceful  and  per- 
sistent, can  roll  into  the  path  obstacles  which 
would  not  appear  at  all  to  a  unanimous  company. 
Legal  difficulties  are  adjustable  to  unanimous  de- 
sires held  faithfully  to  an  unaltered  purpose.  In 
the  tri-church  negotiations  the  committee  on 
vested  interests  affirmed  that  no  insurmountable 
obstacles  were  presented  by  property  considera- 
tions. The  law  can  bring  to  pass  such  changes 
as  right-hearted  persons  have  ceased  to  contend 
against. 

The  relations  of  the  state  conference  with  our 
national  missionary  societies  comprise  one  of  the 

Conference  and  mOSt    delicate    matters    to   be   ad- 

National  Societies  j\isted.  In  certain  of  the  reor- 
ganizing states  this  has  proved  to  be  a  point  of 
some  friction.  Our  national  societies  have  been 
accustomed  to  solicit  funds  freely  and  without 
concert  anywhere  in  the  land.  They  have  gone 
in  and  out  among  our  churches  without  let  or 
hindrance.  They  have  dealt  directly  and  sepa- 
rately with  the  churches,  each  society  seeking  the 
largest  possible  income  without  regard  to  any 
other  society.  The  confusion  and  discomfort  of 
this  system,  the  increasing  irritation  and  inade- 
quacy, the  rising  demand  for  cooperation  between 
the  societies,  the  need  of  orderly  and  reliable 
[ii6] 


State  Unification 

giving,  —  these  have  brought  on  our  present 
trial  of  proportionate  benevolence.  This 
advance  has  been  synchronous  with  the 
growing  state  consciousness  and  consolida- 
tion. And  now  the  states  are  undertaking  to  ap- 
ply, each  in  its  own  territory,  the  offered  plan  of 
benevolence,  and  on  the  other  hand  are  serving 
friendly  notice  upon  the  national  societies  that 
their  solicitations  must  no  longer  be  independent 
of  state  advice  and  joint  management.  Our 
churches  are  unwilling  to  have  a  scheme,  elabo- 
rated however  carefully  in  New  York  or  Boston, 
laid  down  hard  all  over  the  land  from  the  na- 
tional offices.  There  is  something  which  looks 
like  assessing  the  churches,  or  at  least  assessing 
the  conferences  and  associations ;  and  assessment 
is  another  of  those  dreadful  words  which,  when 
uttered  megaphonically  from  national  headquar- 
ters, make  autonomous  Congregationalists  nerv- 
ous. The  state  conferences  are  therefore  saying. 
Hand  this  new  scheme  to  us  for  inspection  and 
application. 

These  adjustments  between  the  state  and  na- 
tional bodies  must  be  made  with  the  utmost  pains 

and    good-will.       It    is    true,    and    it         For  increased 

must  be  kept  clear,  that  the  one  de-  Efficiency 
sire  is  for  increased  efficiency.  No'  detriment  to 
the  glorious  work  of  our  national  societies  will 
be  permitted.  No  injustice  will  be  done  them  by 
the  state  bodies.  On  the  contrary,  the  confer- 
ences purpose  to  give  the  societies  a  better  hear- 
[117] 


Congregational  Administration 

ing  in  the  churches  and  to  offer  themselves  as 
new  agencies  for  presenting  the  national  forms  of 
work,  raising  increased  funds  and  training  the 
churches  to  systematic  giving.  The  con- 
ferences should  commend  all  the  national 
societies  to  the  churches,  inspire  and  hold 
the  churches  to  their  duty,  welcome  the 
secretaries  and  agents  of  the  societies,  instruct 
and  stimulate  the  churches,  operate  detailed  finan- 
cial plans,  thus  coworking  with  the  national  so- 
cieties. Nothing  less  is  proposed  by  any  state. 
It  may  indeed  seem  new  and  strange  to  the  of- 
ficers of  the  societies  to  hear  the  conferences 
claim  to  be  in  charge  of  their  own  fields.  But 
it  is  believed  that  all  parties  concerned  will  soon 
discover  power  and  a  superior  brand  of  Congre- 
gationalism in  the  new  measures  with  their  sys- 
tem, their  multiplied  leaders  and  interests,  their 
distributed  responsibility. 

If  it  be  asked  in  what  actual  terms  adjustments 
have  already  been  arranged  in  any  states,  the  re- 
Experiments  in  ply  must  be  very  partial.  In  some 
Several  States  cascs  cooperation  has  been  initiated 
at  useful  points,  in  the  faith  that  no  problems  in 
fraternal  adjustment  will  prove  bafRing.  As  con- 
crete examples,  Wisconsin,  Michigan,  and  North- 
ern California  may  be  cited  again. 

In  California  the  state  and  national  adjustment 

is  affected  by  the  residence  among  us  of  district 

secretaries    or    agents    of   the   national    societies 

whose  field   is   the   entire   Pacific   Coast.      With 

[ii8] 


State  Unification 

these  brethren,  as  also  with  state  superintendents 
of  national  forms  of  work,  we  have  the  happiest 
relations.  We  have  entered  upon  our  new  ad- 
ministration with  the  cordial  cooperation  of  these 
men,  believing-  that  all  adjustments  will  prove 
manageable  as  they  emerge.  Our  board  of 
t\venty-one  directors  is  entrusted  with  our  state- 
wide future,  the  relations  with  the  national  so- 
cieties being  one  of  the  main  things  left  confi- 
dently in  their  charge.  In  Michigan,  while  noth- 
ing has  been  formulated  in  the  constitution  or  in 
resolution,  the  state  leaders  and  forces  are  a  unit 
in  insisting  that  all  national  work  in  the  state 
shall  be  under  state  direction,  and  that  there 
shall  be  in  Michigan  no  officers  or  agents  of  the 
national  societies  wholly  directed  from  without 
the  state. 

The  most  definite  statement  of  relations  thus 
far  made  is  by  the  Wisconsin  State  Association. 
It  is  as  follows:  "That  the  Association  through 
its  board  of  directors  shall  control  the  work  now 
done  by  The  Congregational  Sunday-School  and 
Publishing  Society,  but  the  national  society  shall 
be  consulted  in  the  appointment  of  superintendent 
and  missionaries  and  in  the  initiation  of  all  im- 
portant measures.  All  money  received  for  the 
Sunday-school  work  in  our  denomination  in  Wis- 
consin shall  pass  through  the  hands  of  the  treas- 
urer of  the  Association,  but  the  national  society 
shall  receive  from  such  offerings  and  bequests 
an  amount  to  be  determined  from  year  to  year 
[119I 


Congvcgatioyial  Administration 

by  the  board  of  directors.  Appeals  to  the 
churches  of  Wisconsin  in  behalf  of  the  national 
society  shall  be  through  the  office  of  the  State 
Association.  The  directors  shall  organize  this 
work  under  a  committee  of  their  own  appoint- 
ment, of  which  committee  the  superintendent  of 
Sunday-school  work  shall  be  a  member  ex  officio. 
While  the  work  of  this  committee  shall  be  dis- 
tinct from  the  work  of  the  home  missionary  com- 
mittee, it  shall  be  coordinate  with  home  mission- 
ary work,  and  the  Sunday-school  and  home  mis- 
sionary committees  shall  have  a  joint  conference 
at  least  once  a  year.  The  superintendent  and 
Sunday-school  committee  shall  use  the  office  force 
of  the  Association  in  their  work  and  shall  use  the 
association  office  for  their  headquarters." 

The  points  here  are  state  management  under  a 
superintendent  and  committee  of  Sunday-school 
work,  consultation  with  the  national  society,  con- 
tributions to  the  national  treasury,  appeals  by  na- 
tional society  agents  to  be  made  through  the 
state  office,  the  state  Sunday-school  superintend- 
ent and  committee  to  use  the  state  headquarters 
and  to  be  appointed  by  and  responsible  to  the 
state  board  of  directors.  The  design  in  both 
Michigan  and  Wisconsin  is  to  develop  similar 
relations  of  state  superintendence  and  cooperation 
with  all  the  national  societies  alike,  reducing  the 
present  diversity  to  order. 

An  easier  adjustment  is  that  between  state 
conference    and    local    associations.      What    the 

[  120] 


State  Unification 

churches  through  their  representatives  plan  for 
the  whole  state  can  best  be  put  Into  execution 

through       the       local       associations.       conference  and 

These  are  smaller  groups  of  the  -Associations 
same  churches.  There  should  be  no  friction  within 
the  state.  The  Congregational  way  is  to  appoint 
an  active  committee  in  each  local  association  to 
cooperate  with  the  central  committee  of  the  con- 
ference. In  Michigan  there  are  such  advisory 
committees  heading  up  in  the  board  of  trustees 
in  the  conference.  The  same  is  true  in  Wiscon- 
sin, Ohio  and  California.  Thus  the  whole  state 
shares  the  responsibilities  of  administration.  The 
two  main  points  are  always  and  everywhere  the 
same :  —  local  responsibility  all  along  the  work- 
ing line  and  effective  state  unity. 

Thus  we  reach  the  question  of  administrative 
headship  in  a  Congregational  state.  What  form 
shall  the  state  executive  take?  Administrative 
What  the  states  are  working  at  is,  Headship 
as  we  have  seen,  to  unite  all  activities  under  a 
single  administration.  The  unifying  body  must 
be  the  state  conference  with  a  board  of  directors 
large  enough  to  manage  the  whole  diversified 
work.  The  board  should  contain  at  least  one  rep- 
resentative from  each  local  association  in  the 
state.  In  Michigan  the  directors  number  one 
from  each  local  association  and  four  at  large ; 
in  Wisconsin  the  same  plus  moderator,  registrar, 
and  treasurer ;  in  Southern  California  and  North- 
ern California  twenty-one  similarly  distributed; 

[121] 


Congregational  Administration 

in  Ohio,  twenty-seven;  in  South  Dakota,  fifteen. 
The  aim  is  to  make  these  directors  the  responsi- 
ble managers,  more  or  less  directly,  of  the  total 
state  work.  They  may  act  through  bureaus  and 
committees,  and  even  through  separate  home  mis- 
sionary corporations.  Wherever  the  latter  can 
legally  be  dispensed  wath,  the  unity  of  work  and 
the  immediate  management  of  the  directors  may 
be  complete.  In  some  states,  notably  Michigan 
and  Wisconsin,  the  directors  are  already  going 
one  step  further.  They  are  putting  the  state 
work  under  a  single  executive,  elected  either  by 
the  directors  or  the  conference,  responsible  to  the 
board  and  subject  to  its  direction.  In  these  states 
the  superintendent  is  in  charge  not  merely 
of  the  home  missionary  work  as  heretofore,  but 
of  all  forms  of  work  now  organized  together 
under  the  directors  of  the  incorporated  state  con- 
ference. The  different  departments  —  home  mis- 
sionary, Sunday-school,  church  building,  foreign 
missionary  and  others  —  he  will  conduct  through 
heads  of  departments  and  committees.  The 
whole  force  is  the  executive  agency  of  the  board 
of  directors,  which  is  itself  responsible  to  the  con- 
ference. This  complete  unification  of  state  work 
is  rational  and  practical.  It  is  also  proper  and 
consistent  Congregationalism. 

We  come  now  to  superintendence  as  an  ele- 
ment  in    Congregationalism.      Its    discussion    is 
most  pertinent  here,  because  in  state  work  it  is 
most  in  evidence  and  debate.     But  it  opens  out 
[  122] 


State  Unification 

into  larger  proportions.    Let  the  precise  point  of 
inquiry  be  noted.  The  question  is  not  whether  the 
employment   of  executive   agents    superintendence 
is    germane    to     the     Congrega-    a  factor  in 

.         1         ,.,  ,       ,         (.     ,  ,  Congregationalism 

tional  polity;  no  body  of  churches 
can  grow  and  serve  without  such  leaders.  The 
question  is  not  whether  to  admit  into  our  system 
an  element  hitherto  rejected;  the  element  is  pres- 
ent. The  question  is,  Shall  we  build  it  up,  and 
how  far?  We  are  quite  accustomed  to  the  class 
of  men  called  superintendents;  shall  we  enlarge 
their  scope  and  influence?  This  is  one  point  of 
difference  between  denominations  which  are  al- 
ready practising  federation  and  even  discussing 
union.  Along  this  line  of  administrative  super- 
intendence how  far  can  we  safely  and  wisely  go, 
either  to  promote  our  own  efficiency  or  to  meet 
other  bodies  inclined  to  union? 

Let  us  bear  in  mind  our  large  use  of  this  form 
of  service.     We  find  it  in  the  secretaryships  of 

our       national       societies.      Enlarged  superintendence 
We   have    it   nearer   home      "'  Dangers  and  usefulness 

in  the  district  secretaries  and  state  superintend- 
ents sustained  by  these  societies.  We  have  super- 
intendents or  secretaries  of  city  missions,  of 
church  extension  societies,  of  Sunday-school 
work,  of  Christian  Endeavor,  of  the  Brother- 
hood, and  of  other  lines  of  work.  Chief  of  all 
for  current  developments  in  our  polity  are  the 
state  home  missionary  superintendents  or  secre- 
taries. This  is  the  office  which  the  states  now 
[  123] 


Congregational  Administration 

reorganizing  are  enlarging,  to  bear  in  some  cases 
cited  the  total  administrative  headship  of  the  state 
work.  The  very  first  step  in  the  enlargement  of 
this  office  is  sensitively  challenged.  The  scope  of 
the  office  has  been  confined  to  our  home  mission- 
ary churches.  But  surely  a  dividing  line  solely 
financial  between  churches,  separating  the  one 
division  as  independent  from  the  other  as  de- 
pendent, is  far  from  making  a  fraternal  and  gra- 
cious distinction.  It  is  proposed  to  minimize  this 
distinction  and  make  the  state  superintendent 
the  servant  of  all  the  churches.  This  is  ques- 
tioned, resented,  resisted  by  some  leaders  and 
churches,  as  derogatory  to  themselves  and  a  men- 
ace to  local  autonomy.  But  it  is  neither,  when 
rightly  constituted,  manned  and  understood.  Cu- 
riously, some  persons  and  churches  are  sensitive 
to  the  presence  of  a  Congregational  superintend- 
ent suffered  to  run  at  large  in  a  state.  His  mere 
existence  irritates.  If  he  venture  to  ask  a  church, 
Is  there  anything  you  care  to  have  me  do  for 
you?  the  question  sounds  like  a  threat  against 
liberty;  surely  it  contains  the  veiled  approach  of 
authority ;  the  man  is  a  fledgling  bishop !  It  is, 
however,  interesting  to  learn  from  any  home 
missionary  superintendent,  how  few  churches 
there  are  which  never  call  upon  him  for  any  sort 
of  service.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  there  is  no  such 
official  in  the  land  whose  desk  is  often  free  from 
business  pertaining  to  self-sustaining  churches. 
It  is  already  happily  and  fruitfully  true  that  our 
[  124] 


State  Uniiication 

churches  and  superintendents  are  ignoring  the 
hne  between  missionary  and  non-missionary 
churches,  that  the  superintendents  are  regarded  as 
servants  of  all  the  churches,  and  that  to  forbid 
our  self-supporting  churches  to  seek  further  serv- 
ice from  the  superintendents  would  embarrass 
our  state  conditions  as  few  other  things  could. 
To  promote  the  home  missionary  superintendent 
to  be  superintendent  of  all  the  churches  would 
be  scarcely  more  than  formal  recognition  of  ac- 
tual fact.  And  then  to  bring  together  in  his 
executive  hand  all  the  reins  of  state  activity 
would  be  simply  to  consolidate  our  scattered  in- 
terests around  the  natural  and  prepared  center. 

Such  an  enlarged  superintendency  lies  wholly 
in  the  realm  of  administration,  having  no  legisla- 
tive  or  judicial    function.      It   is       Confined  to 

clothed   with   no   irresponsible   au-  Administration 

thority,  possessed  of  no  coercion;  nothing  is  in 
Congregationalism.  It  is  influential  leadership; 
influential  certainly  and  strongly,  else  it  need  not 
be  at  all.  It  is  service  and  sacrifice,  not  lordship. 
It  is  the  organ  of  the  churches'  mutual  care.  Its 
opportunity  is  wide  and  grand,  its  duties  infi- 
nitely exacting,  its  devotion  even  unto  death. 
Here,  as  everywhere  in  Congregationalism  and 
democracy,  the  personal  equation  bulks  large.  It 
is  nothing  to  say  that  the  wrong  man  in  this 
office  may  grow  lordly  and  tyrannical.  In  a 
world  of  freedom  all  perversions  are  possible. 
But  as  no  man  taketh  this  power  unto  himself, 
[125] 


Congregational  Adininistraiion 

so  no  man  retains  it  by  personal  prowess.  We, 
the  churches,  appoint  him,  and  supersede  him  for 
cause.  I  heard  Dr.  Gladden  ridicule  the  fear  of 
authority,  saying  that  he  should  like  to  see  a  Con- 
gregational officer  attempt  authority  over  the 
churches;  forthwith  we  would  make  him  wish 
that  he  had  never  been  born.  We  need  not  deny 
the  tendency  of  official  position  to  entrench  itself 
and  put  forth  power.  But  if  any  concrete  case  of 
it  proceed  far,  the  fault  is  the  people's,  the  rem- 
edy being  always  in  their  hands.  Do  not  illus- 
trate by  the  "big  stick"  in  politics  or  industry. 
In  neither  industry  nor  politics  are  there  equal 
incentives  to  righteousness,  service,  and  sacrifice; 
in  neither  are  evil  men  so  weak  in  social  re- 
sources, so  exposed  to  rebuke  and  displacement. 
No  system  of  things  is  so  secure  from  official  tyr- 
anny as  a  body  of  free  churches,  whose  reliance 
is  upon  genuine  moral  character  and  Christian 
experience,  whose  instrument  is  right  reason.  In 
our  Congregational  order  we  may  develop  the 
executive  superintendency  without  imperiling  the 
liberties  of  our  churches.  No  superintendent  can 
obtain  his  office  or  hold  it  save  by  the  concurrent 
action  of  the  churches.  No  superintendent  can 
touch  a  single  church  against  its  will.  Be  it  re- 
peated till  "the  youngest  critic  has  died,"  —  we 
are  a  body  of  free  churches;  our  officers  are  our 
servants,  always  subject  to  our  will.  On  such 
a  basis  we  may  organize  a  unified  and  effective 
order,  and  have  for  our  responsible  leaderships 
[126] 


State  Unification 

Christian  men  too  choice  in  character,  too  win- 
some in  approach,  too  wise  in  counsel,  too  re- 
sourceful in  strategy,  too  effective  in  action,  too 
unreserved  in  sacrifice,  too  divinely  attended,  to 
be  suspected  of  ambition  or  begrudged  the  nth 
power  of  influential  service.  Any  system  of 
elected  and  removable  superintendence  is  safe  in 
Congregationalism.  Until  we  develop  it,  we  are 
behind  our  duty  and  beneath  our  opportunity. 
Dr.  Mackennal  said  again,  in  his  address  from 
the  chair  of  the  Congregational  Union  of  Eng- 
land and  Wales,  "If  it  be  recognized  that  the 
government  of  each  particular  church  is  in  its 
membership,  we  may  adopt  diocesan  and  con- 
nexional  methods  of  administration,  not  only 
without  mischief,  but  even  with  the  best  results." 


[  127  J 


LECTURE  V 
NATIONAL  UNITY 


V 

NATIONAL  UNITY 

At  the  point  reached  by  the  preceding  lecture, 
there  were  more  than  twoscore  separate  state 
conferences,  each  composed  of  the  rphe  Fieia 
Congregational  churches  of  a  is  the 
single  state,  and  vitally  related 
to  the  local  associations  in  the  same  ter- 
ritory. Our  construction  of  an  adequate  admin- 
istrative system  must  not,  as  we  have  heard  from 
Mr.  John  Fiske,  stop  short  of  achieving  national 
unity.  The  field  is  the  country,  cut  and  uncut 
by  state  boundaries,  and  the  field  is  the  world. 
There  are  problems  and  opportunities  sectional, 
national,  continental  and  ecumenical,  requiring 
larger  regimentation  and  "farflung  battle  lines." 
This  we  discovered  a  century  ago.  For  a  hundred 
years  we  have  lived  in  these  greater  visions,  and 
have  wrought  unto  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Ap- 
paratus for  each  new  line  of  service  came  at  call, 
in  the  best  way,  the  only  way  it  could  come,  by 
experiment  and  invention;  it  was,  in  Professor 
Ladd's  phrase,  "Progress  by  individual  inquiry."^ 
The  Congregational  churches  knew  not  how  to 
rise  up  all  together,  act  in  full  national  force 
through  accredited  representatives,  and  create  a 
S3^stem  of  agencies  expansive  enough  for  the 
*  Principles  of  Church  Polity,  p.  57. 
[131] 


Congregation al  A d ministration 

growing  day.  Such  churches  as  desired  to — 
and  that  was  the  great  majority — accepted  and 
employed  the  societies  launched  by  a  few  organiz- 
ing individuals.  Those  unrepresentative,  self- 
governing  societies  were  true  Congregational 
products  of  their  time,  suited  to  Congregational 
spirit  and  action.  They  were  supported  with 
fervent  and  generous  devotion,  and  drew  our  in- 
dependent churches  together  in  common  service. 
And  when  in  these  last  days  the  spirit  of  Con- 
gregational unity  began  to  stir  within  us,  behold 
among  us  several  unifying  agencies  of  truly  na- 
tional proportions  and  influence!  It  was  only 
too  plain,  however,  that  since  each  was  partial 
and  specialized,  independent  of  the  others  and  the 
churches,  and  was  missionary  rather  than  admin- 
istrative, no  one  of  them  was  capable  of  organiz- 
ing a  truly  national  unity  of  the  Congregational 
churches. 

Our  unifying  body  is  the  National  Council.  It 
came  to  the  kingdom  for  this  hour.  Far-sighted 
The  National  men,  they  who  organized  it  in  1871, 
Council  "qj^  |.j-jg  grave  of  buried  prejudices." 

The  Congregational  churches  cf  the  United 
States,  not  their  associations  and  conferences,  are 
the  constituent  members,  as  saith  its  con- 
stitution. The  delegates  to  the  meetings  of 
the  Council,  elected  in  the  local  and  state  bodies, 
are  representatives  of  the  churches  which  directly 
compose  those  bodies  and  the  Council.  Thus  our 
highest  administrative  agency  is  but  one  step  re- 
[132] 


National  Unity 

moved  —  it  were  better  called  a  half  step  —  from 
the  churches  themselves. 

The  National  Council  is  a  permanent  body, 
having  perennial  life  like  the  conferences,  associa- 
tions and  the  churches  themselves,  a  Permanent 
There  are  some  who  speak  as  if  the  ^°^^ 
Council  had  no  enduring  existence,  sprang  anew 
intO'  being  on  the  stroke  of  a  gavel  once  in  three 
years  and  dropped  dead  a  few  days  later 
under  the  same  magic  touch.  It  is  the  tempo- 
rary session  of  a  permanent  body  that  is  opened 
and  closed  upon  a  gavel  stroke  by  a  few  tech- 
nical words.  If  this  was  not  intended  at  Oberlin 
in  1 87 1,  we  have  grown  to  the  stronger  idea.  It 
is  explicitly  stated  in  the  constitution,  at  any  rate, 
and  we  may  hope  our  fathers  knew  how  well 
they  were  building  that  platform.  "The  Con- 
gregational churches  of  the  United  States,"  they 
said,  "by  elders  and  messengers  assembled, 
do  now  associate  themselves  in  National  Coun* 
cil" ;  "the  churches  will  meet  in  National  Council 
every  third  year" ;  "at  each  triennial  session"  — 
the  phrase  is  "triennial  session" — certain  officers 
shall  be  chosen  "to  serve  from  the  close  of  such 
session  to  the  close  of  the  next  triennial  session." 
It  is  the  constitution  of  a  living  organism,  never 
disappearing  altogether,  never  unproductive,  but 
rising  into  full  view  and  formal  action  once  in 
three  years. 

In  the  section  of  the  constitution  just  quoted, 
provision  is  made  for  secretary,   registrar    and 
[  133  ] 


Congregation  al  A  dm  in  ist  ration 

treasurer,  who  shall  hold  office  and  continue  ac- 
t;\-e  during  the  triennium;  also  for  a  provisional 
Moderator  of  Committee  to  arrange  for  the  next 
National  Council  j-egular  sessiou  and  for  any  special 
session  that  may  be  called.  As  to  the  ad  interim 
standing  of  these  officers  and  this  committee,  there 
can  be  no  difference  of  opinion ;  nor  respecting 
any  and  all  standing  committees,  for  these  also  are 
expressly  provided  for  in  the  constitution.  Over 
the  moderatorship  there  has  arisen  since  the 
meeting  of  1901  an  earnest  disagreement.  The 
moderator  elected  then  was  the  Rev.  Amory  H. 
Bradford,  D.D.,  of  New  Jersey,  of  bluer  Con- 
gregational blood  than  John  Wise  or  Nathaniel 
Emmons,  and  equally  loyal  to  Congregational 
spirit  and  principle.  Believing  himself  moder- 
ator until  his  successor  should  be  elected,  and 
desiring  to  make  the  office  useful  between  ses- 
sions, he  ventured  to  speak  out  in  the  organized 
silence  of  Congregationalism.  It  was  a  mon- 
strous thing  to  do !  Some  told  him  so  when  they 
had  caught  their  breath.  Moderator  of  what? 
There  was  nothing  to  be  moderator  of  between 
October  1901  and  October  1904.  But  he  went 
right  on  serving  the  churches  as  moderator  of 
the  National  Council  of  the  Congregational 
Churches  of  the  United  States  until  his  successor 
was  elected  in  the  triennial  session  at  Des  Moines. 
That  successor  was  busier  yet  in  the  same 
capacity  until  the  present  moderator  was  elected 
in  1907  at  Cleveland.  In  the  current  triennium 
[134] 


National  Unity 

our  leader  is  rendering  much  admirable  service, 
is  generous  with  time  and  influence,  and  is  in  no 
danger  of  being  declared  an  ad  interim  incompe- 
tent. Many  of  us  are  sure  we  have  a  standing 
moderator  of  the  National  Council ;  some  refuse 
to  acknowledge  him.  Congregationalists  are  not 
compelled  to  take  what  they  do  not  want.  We 
are  waiting  hopefully  for  that  unanimity  of  which 
we  sing.  In  1871  our  fathers  had  not  reached 
this  issue  of  a  permanent  moderatorship.  In 
their  constitution  they  ordered  the  election  of  a 
moderator  at  the  beginning  of  every  stated  or 
special  session  "to  preside  over  its  deliberations" ; 
in  the  following  sentence,  however,  they  direct 
him  as  moderator  to  open  with  an  address  the  fol- 
lowing meeting  of  the  Council.  A  pertinent  by- 
law has  been  added  since  then,  which  says,  "The 
presiding  officers  shall  retain  their  offices  until 
their  successors  are  chosen."  etc.  At  Des  Moines 
we  were  instructed  in  a  sincere  and  very  expert 
speech  from  the  floor  that  that  clause  of  the  by- 
law, when  enacted,  was  not  intended  to  mean 
what  it  says.  At  the  present  time  we  desire  to 
have  it  mean  what  it  says.  It  would  seem  wise, 
however,  to  take  such  action  as  may  set  the  whole 
matter  at  rest. 

In  Congregationalism  some  one  does  a  thing, 
and  presently  the  rest  of  us  exclaim,  Why,  that's 
right!  So  now  we  have  a  stand-  The  First 
ing  moderator,  and  not  merely  a  congregationaiist 
sessional  presiding  officer.  We  could  not  longer 
[135] 


Congregational  Administration 

do  without  him.  The  national  organization  of 
six  thousand  Christian  churches  is  an  important 
factor  in  the  social  order.  Its  moderatorship  is 
an  eminent  post  of  honor  and  service,  —  not  a 
prize  of  ambitious  politics,  but  a  stewardship  en- 
trusted to  capacity  and  consecration.  Its  oc- 
cupant should  be  a  man  of  national  proportions, 
administrative  ability,  and  spiritual  power.  He 
is  for  the  time  the  first  man  in  the  Congregational 
land.  We  have  not  yet  reached,  we  may  never 
reach,  the  point  of  expecting  our  moderator  to 
devote  his  whole  time  to  this  office.  We  could 
not  call  a  pastor  away  from  his  church  or  a  lay- 
man out  of  his  business  without  at  least  fair 
promise  of  a  service  longer  than  three  years.  Nor 
is  this  so  needful  while  the  secretaryship  con- 
tinues powerful  and  productive. 

The  secretaryship  of  the  National  Council,  as 
things  now  stand,  should  be  the  most  conspicuous 
Secretary  of  position  in  the  leadership  of  our 

National  Council  churches.  There  is,  of  course, 
large  room  for  divergent  conceptions  of  it.  To 
me  it  seems  mainly  an  outdoor  office.  There 
is  much  indoor  work  to  be  done,  of  which  the 
Year  Book  is  the  most  palpable  product.  The 
churches  should  enable  the  secretary  tO'  conduct 
this  indoor  work  through  assistants  and  em- 
ployees. He  himself,  being  a  man  of  national 
size,  and  persona  grata  everywhere,  should  be  out 
among  the  churches.  All  the  state  conferences 
and  many  of  the  local  associations  should  know 
[  136  ] 


National  Unify 

his  voice  and  feel  his  heart.  He  would  carry 
everywhere  the  great  issues  of  our  organized 
churches.  In  his  person  would  be  greeted  Con- 
gregationalism incarnate,  and  men  would  know  it 
as  a  living  thing.  In  many  parts  of  the  land  his 
appearance  would  do  more  than  anything  else  to 
give  Congregationalism  a  local  habitation  and  a 
name.  Through  him  churches  and  pastors  would 
learn,  for  example,  that  the  two-cent  annual 
assessment  is  a  real  and  reasonable  thing,  and 
that  honor  is  involved  in  its  prompt  payment.  A 
secretary  of  the  Council  might,  from  his  office 
desk,  desire  just  such  far-stretching  ministry, 
and  might  wonder  at  not  being  invited  in  all 
directions.  It  would  certainly  be  well  for  the 
churches  in  their  organized  bodies  to  request  his 
service,  and  I  can  think  of  but  one  good  reason 
why  they  might  hesitate  to  do  so.  But  when  a 
man  becomes  a  secretary  he  does  not  forfeit  his 
native  right  of  initiative  and  administration.  Let 
him  invite  himself  out  and  range  freely  among 
us.  This  office  is  a  post  of  eminence  and  leader- 
ship. We  elect  its  incumbent  for  his  capacity  as 
leader.  Let  us  then  expect  him  to  lead,  giving 
him  support,  attention,  cooperation.  His  salary 
should  be  adequate  to  first-class  constructive 
ability.  And  ample  funds  should  be  furnished 
for  extensive  service  afield.  It  would  be  interest- 
ing, perhaps  painful,  to  learn  how  generally  our 
churches  and  ministers  still  conceive  of  the  Na- 
tional Council  secretary  as  an  office  employee 
[  137] 


Congregation al  Administrition 

rather  than  as  an  organizer  of  national  forces  for 
world-wide  enterprise. 

National  Council  finances  cannot  be  passed 
over  in  silence.  We  have  reached  a  pass  wherein 
Finances  of  wc  must  presently,  perhaps  at  the 

National  Council  ^ext  meeting  of  the  Council, 
choose  between  two  alternatives :  either  to 
increase  considerably  the  Council's  income  for 
operating  expenses  or  to  decline  our  en- 
larging service  to  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
For  some  years  the  annual  income  of  the 
Council  stood  at  one  and  one-half  cents  per  Con- 
gregational church-member.  At  that  rate  seven 
hundred  thousand  members  would  give  $10,500 
a  year.  Since  the  last  meeting  of  the  Council 
two  cents  per  member  have  been  called  for, 
amounting  to  $14,000  from  seven  hundred  thou- 
sand members.  The  state  conferences  are  the 
bodies  to  collect  this  money  and  pay  it  into  the 
national  treasury.  It  is  surprising  and  humiliat- 
ing to  learn  that  there  is  always  a  number  of  states 
delinquent  in  payment,  some  of  them  two  or  even 
three  years  in  arrears,  and  that  these  national 
moneys  are  never  paid  in  full.  Ultimate  respon- 
sibility rests  upon  the  churches.  There  are 
pastors  and  church  officers  who  flatly  refuse  or 
silently  repudiate  their  part  of  this  common  ob- 
ligation. For  such  men  or  groups  of  men  cur- 
rent life  has  the  sharp  term  "grafters";  they 
gather  in  as  gratuity  the  standing  benefits  of 
membership  in  national  Congregationalism.  Such 
[138] 


National  Unity 

conduct  is  indefensible;  it  does  not  fall  under 
casuistry;  it  is  simply  wrong.  Finance  is  never 
unmoral,  but  often  immoral.  The  guilty  men 
and  churches  cannot  be  imprisoned  for  debt; 
they  may  yield  to  Congregational  sentiment  as 
that  grows  vigorous  and  searching. 

But  what  do  we  want  of  funds,  and  in- 
creased funds  in  our  national  administration? 
The  salary  and  expenses  of  the  increased 
national  secretary  have  been  men-  income 
tioned.  The  Year-Book,  indispensable  to  our 
denominational  life,  is  an  expensive  kind  of  book. 
The  salary  and  office  expenses  of  the  treasurer 
are  not  large,  but  real.  Beyond  these  there 
spreads  out  an  enlarging  scope  of  official 
and  committee  work,  for  which  at  present  we 
have  almost  no  provision.  We  appoint  standing 
committees  to  transact  important  business  be- 
tween sessions;  these  committees  cannot  count 
on  having  their  bare  traveling  expenses  paid  for 
a  single  meeting  in  the  three  years.  There 
are  lines  of  new  work  which  require  increasing 
expenditure,  such  as  the  Brotherhood  movement, 
interdenominational  comity,  evangelism,  social 
reform.  The  National  Council  has  initiated 
work  on  all  these  lines,  appointed  committees, 
even  approved  the  employment  of  special  agents 
or  secretaries,  without  offering  the  least  financial 
provision  for  the  work.  This  state  of  affairs  can- 
not, it  would  seem,  be  continued.  Our  six  thou- 
sand churches  must  not  be  limited  to  the  service 
[  139] 


Congregational  Administration 

of  men  who  can  afford  and  are  interested  to 
pay  their  own  expenses  or  are  able  and  willing  to 
solicit  contributions  for  their  special  tasks.  Con- 
gregational work  is  already  too  multiform  and 
expensive  for  these  devoted  and  generous  men. 
Must  we  imprison  ourselves  within  the  little  forms 
of  work  which  can  be  carried  on  in  the  good  old 
way?  The  alternatives  are  endowment  funds 
for  administration,  or  increased  per  capita  dues, 
punctually  and  regularly  paid,  from  all  our  mem- 
bers in  the  land.  I  believe  the  Council  must 
seriously  undertake  this  vital  matter.  In  the 
present  triennium  some  of  our  indispensable 
pastors  and  laymen  have  declined  committee  serv- 
ice, because  of  their  quickening  conviction  on 
this  financial  problem. 

Nor  have  we  yet  the  whole  financial  predica- 
ment before  us.  There  is  another  factor  in  it 
Expenses  of  which  bears  more  sharply  than  many 
Delegates  would  havc  it  Upon  the  proper  con- 
stitution and  efficiency  of  the  National  Council.  I 
refer  to  the  expenses  of  delegates  to  the  meetings 
of  the  Council.  Our  national  meetings  never  can 
be  completely  representative  so  long  as  attend- 
ance is  left  to  the  convenience  and  financial  re- 
sources of  individuals.  At  every  meeting  there 
are  large  gaps  in  our  ranks,  mainly  according  to 
distance  save  for  special  modifying  circum- 
stances. And  the  actual  attendants  are  in  very 
many  cases  not  those  we  should  choose  to  send, 
but  those  who  can  and  will  go.  It  is  not  that  any 
[  140] 


National  Unity 

pastor  or  layman  is  unworthy  to  go;  we  are  dem- 
ocrats. On  the  contrary,  just  because  all  are 
worthy,  we  desire  to  distribute  the  high  privilege 
of  service  and  culture.  We  desire  to  be  repre- 
sented by  the  men  of  our  choice,  and  at  special 
junctures  by  those  best  fitted  for  the  issues  to  be 
wrought  out.  Large  numbers  of  us  have  already 
fallen  out  of  sympathy  with  those  pastors  and 
laymen,  attendant  on  the  Council  again  and 
again,  who  resist  the  change  which  would  alter 
considerably  the  personnel  of  the  meetings.  We 
ought  to  be  entirely  free  to  send  what  delegates 
we  would.  The  matter  cannot  be  left  to  state 
and  local  bodies.  These  have  always  been  at 
liberty  to  pay  their  own  delegates'  expenses,  but 
they  neither  do  it  nor  can  do  it.  In  so  broad  a 
land  the  burden  remains  too  unequal. 

The  only  solution  of  the  problem,  the  only  way 
to  assemble  whomsoever  we  would,  the  only  way 
to  enlist  gradually  our  total  force,  No  other 
the  only  way  to  make  our  national  ad-  s°i"ti°° 
ministration  a  real  and  vital  thing  to  our  ministers 
and  churches  everywhere,  is  to  provide  amply 
and  administer  equitably  a  central  fund  for  dele- 
gates' expenses.  True  enough,  w^e  have  sorrow- 
ful object-lessons  on  either  side  of  us,  awakening 
dread  of  the  difficulties  and  dangers  of  such  a 
fund.  But  nothing  great  was  ever  done  in 
dread  of  difficulty  and  danger.  The  Congrega- 
tional churches  of  the  United  States  in  National 
Council  assembled  are  six  thousand  strong,  doing 
[141] 


Congregational  Administration 

enormous  business  for  the  Kingdom  of  God.  As 
at  present  managed,  the  frequent  remark  is  far 
from  groundless,  though  severe  and  unjust,  that 
the  Council  appears  to  be  composed  not  of  six 
thousand  churches,  but  of  certain  numbers  of  in- 
terested individuals  able  to  attend.  The  critic 
should  discover  the  motives  of  genuine  consecra- 
tion underlying  personal  interest  in  the  men 
whose  costly  and  faithful  service  sustains  the 
national  administration  which  alone  gives  co- 
herence and  scope  to  our  sectional  and  local  life. 
But  the  criticism  should  be  silenced  by  altering 
the  general  conditions. 

The  change  now  transpiring  in  the  character 
of  the  Council's  meetings  is  viewed  with  some 
Meetings  of  conccm.    It  is  a  matter  which  calls 

National  Council  f^j-  careful  attention  and  provi- 
sion. Time  was  when  the  meetings  were  largely 
of  inspiration  and  communion.  Noble  addresses 
were  heard  with  leisurely  attention  and  discussed 
with  sustained  interest.  At  present  the  Provi- 
sional Committee  is  hesitating  to  invite  speakers 
and  assure  them  the  time  assigned  them.  At  the 
Cleveland  meeting  the  encroachments  of  business 
repeatedly  threatened  an  impasse  in  the  program. 
The  difficulty  will  increase  if  Congregationalists 
continue  to  enjoy  doing  business  in  open  session. 

We  must  give  business  the  right  of  way.  With 
our  glorious  themes  and  speakers  we  have  other 
occasions  to  commune.  But  this  is  our  one  op- 
portunity in  three  years  to  shape  our  national 
[142] 


National  Unity 

unity,  to  initiate  and  advance  measures,  and  to 
authorize  and  direct  our  ad  interim  administra- 
tion.        The      Council      meeting     if",    Business  Sessions 

therefore  a  business  session.  The  ^^.iniy 
program  should  be  conformed  to  that  idea.  The 
pressure  grows  heavier.  No  wonder  the  question 
is  up,  How  long  will  triennial  sessions  suffice  for 
the  business  of  sO'  large  a  body  of  churches? 
No  man  could  wish  to  multiply  meetings.  Pos- 
sibly we  might  appoint  an  executive  or  business 
committee  charged  with  more  general  functions 
between  sessions. 

Among  considerations  of  national  unity,  main 
interest  is  directed  just  now  to  the  relations  be- 
tween our  missionary  societies  ^^^.^^^^  Council 
and  the  Council.  Preceded  by  no  and 
small  amount  of  discussion,  the  ^^*^°"^^  ^°"^"'' 
matter  was  taken  up  at  Cleveland,  and  the  follow- 
ing recommendation  passed  by  the  Council : 
"That  the  administration  of  the  benevolent  inter- 
ests of  our  churches  be  directed  by  the  represent- 
atives of  the  churches  in  national  organization, 
and  that  this  Council  appoint  a  commission  of 
fifteen,  including  a  representative  from  each  of 
our  benevolent  societies,  who  shall  report  at  its 
next  regular  meeting  such  an  adjustment  oi  these 
societies  to  the  body  of  the  churches  represented 
in  this  Council  as  shall  secure  such  direction,  care 
being  taken  to  safeguard  existing  constitutional 
provisions  of  these  societies  and  the  present  mem- 
bership of  their  boards  of  control,  but  also  to 

[143] 


Congregational  Administration 

lodge  hereafter  the  creation  and  continuance  of 
these  administrative  boards  in  the  suffrage  of  the 
representatives  of  the  churches." 

This  recommendation  states  clearly  the  desires 
of  those  who  favor  including  the  missionary  so- 
Kationai  Unity  cictics  in  the  achievement  of  na- 

Must  tional    unity.       They   believe    it 

Include  Societies  •        ^^      i     ■  .1  •        i- 

Wise  to  bring  these  main  lines 
of  our  service  into  such  representative  rela- 
tion to  the  churches  supporting  them  as  can  be 
secured  only  through  the  Council.  Past  and  pres- 
ent relations  are  generally  understood.  The 
unrepresentative  status  of  each  society  was  per- 
sisted in  long  enough  to  set  up  chronic  irritation. 
Improved  relations  are  still  only  partially  repre- 
sentative, not  yet  gearing  and  belting  the  socie- 
ties into  the  Congregational  system.  The 
societies  have  approached  the  churches  each  in  its 
own  separate  way,  negotiating  with  associations 
or  conferences  or  state  missionary  societies. 
Though  they  are  national  societies,  they  have  not 
formed  alliance  with  the  national  organization  of 
our  churches.  Only  one  of  them,  Ministerial 
Relief,  is  an  agency  of  the  National  Council.  The 
rest  remain  independent,  self-governing  bodies. 
They  have  barely  begun  to  labor  together  as 
members  one  of  another  and  their  several  affairs 
parts  of  a  single  enterprise.  Statements  here 
must  be  general,  with  no  time  for  detailed  excep- 
tions. Substantial  and  hopeful  advances  in  the 
relations  of  the  societies  to  one  another,  to  the 
[  144] 


National  Unity 

churches  and  to  organized  Congregationalism 
are  observed  with  satisfaction.  The  ordinary 
mortal  hailed  the  Joint  Missionary  Campaign  as 
opening  a  new  era  of  cooperation. 

The  recommendation  of  the  National  Council 
quoted  above  shows  what  more  is  asked.  The 
Committee  on  Polity  introduced  under  Direction 
their  recommendations  with  °^  council 
these  sentences :  "With  this  view  of  the  Congre- 
gational order  as  representative,  and  not  purely 
independent,  your  committee  unite  in  the  judg- 
ment that  local,  state  and  national  associations 
afford  ample  organization  for  the  direction  of  all 
of  our  denominational  activities,  and  that  the 
function  of  these  organizations  may  be  inclusive 
of  all  such  interests,  not  imperiling,  but  directly 
safeguarding  the  autonomy  and  liberty  of  the 
local  church.  Believing,  therefore,  that  in  the 
interest  of  simplicity,  unity  and  efficiency  our  or- 
ganism should  be  representative,  we  urge  the 
elimination  of  all  such  organizations  as  are  not 
under  the  direction  of  our  representative  bodies." 
The  action  thus  recommended  by  the  National 
Council  would  result  at  least  in  the  coordination 
of  our  national  societies  under  the  direction  of 
the  Council.  Just  how,  will  have  to  be  worked 
out.  The  Council  appointed  the  commission  of 
fifteen  to  report  the  wisest  procedure.  The  Con- 
gregational Board  of  Ministerial  Relief  illus- 
trates what  might  be  done  with  all  the  societies. 

Our  Baptist  brethren,  more  independent  hither- 
[  145  ] 


Congregational  Administration 

to  than  we,  have  passed  us,  and  are  showing  us 
the  way  and  the  spirit  of  the  way.  At  their 
Baptist  General  Convention  in    1908  they 

Reorganization  g^i^j .  '"fhe  general  activities  of  the 
denomination  are  now  carried  on  by  eight  incor- 
porated societies.  These  are  entirely  independ- 
ent one  of  another,  and  while  deriving  their  sup- 
port from  the  denomination  at  large,  are  legally 
independent  of  the  denomination  as  a  whole.  This 
form  of  organization,  dating  as  far  back  as  1812, 
was  a  natural  outgrowth  of  circumstances  —  in- 
deed there  seemed  to  be  no  other  way  at  the  time 
to  attain  the  ends  in  view.  ...  In  these  days, 
however,  the  old  methods  are  out  of  date.  The 
general  work  of  the  denomination,  it  is  believed, 
will  be  more  economically  and  more  effectively 
rendered  under  a  suitable  plan  of  definite  coor- 
dination. Such  a  plan  is  in  accordance  with  the 
practise  of  large  business  interests  to-day  and 
would  command  the  confidence  of  laymen  whose 
support  is  essential  to  the  prosperity  of  the 
work. 

"Be  it  resolved  by  the  Northern  Baptist  Con- 
vention :  That  at  the  earliest  practicable  date  there 
should  be  an  organic  union  between  the  various 
general  denominational  societies  and  the  North- 
ern Baptist  Convention,  to  the  end  that  the  de- 
nomination through  its  convention  may  be  able 
to  determine  a  suitable  related  policy  for  all  its 
general  activities,"  etc. 

This  action  was  unanimous.  And  best  of  all, 
[146] 


National  Unity 

the  societies  readily  promised  to  begin  working 
the  new  plan  without  waiting  for  the  legal  steps 
to  be  taken.  Have  our  Congregational  societies 
been  heard  offering  as  much?  We  hope,  how- 
ever, to  pursue  organic  union  in  the  same  unan- 
imous way. 

A  further  reorganization  of  our  missionary 
agencies  seems  wise  to  many,  and  has  not  escaped 
the  attention  of  the  Commission  of  Fifteen.  To 
say  that  the  sevenfold  character  of  our  Congrega- 
tional work  is  confusing  to  our  churches  is  to  put 
it  mildly.  It  is  doubtful  if  a  majority  of  our 
church-members  could  give  all  the  names  of  our 
seven  societies.  Only  a  minority  of  our  churches 
have  been  carrying  the  full  number  of  our  socie- 
ties upon  their  benevolence  lists,  many  churches 
contributing  to  but  two  or  three.  Doubtless  the 
plan  of  proportionate  benevolence  will  gradually 
improve  this  situation.  Nothing,  however, 
would  relieve  it  so  thoroughly  as  to  reduce  the 
number  of  societies.  Such  reduction  would  also 
tend,  as  constantly  appears  in  the  business  world, 
to  simplify  administration,  diminish  operating 
expenses  and  multiply  efficiency. 

It  has  been  suggested,  as  one  of  several  pos- 
sible readjustments,  that  our  seven  societies 
might  be  compacted  into  three : 

1.  A  foreign  missionary  society — the  Ameri- 
can Board. 

2.  A  home  missionary  society,  the  resultant  of 
the   Congregational   Home   Missionary   Society, 

[147] 


Congregational  Administration 

the  Congregational  Church  Building  Society, 
and  the  Board  of  Ministerial  Relief. 

3.  A  home-land  religious  educational  society, 
a  union  of  the  American  Missionary  Association, 
the  Sunday-School  Society,  and  the  Congrega- 
tional Education  Society. 

Such  a  readjustment  would  leave  the  publica- 
tion work  standing  by  itself  as  a  business  agency, 
serving  the  whole  denomination,  capable  of  large 
expansion  and  efficiency. 

These  are  natural  and  effective  departments  of 
benevolence,  as  is  seen  in  other  branches  of  the 
Church.  Were  we  now  projecting  our  work  on 
a  clear  field,  we  should  probably  lay  it  out  in  pre- 
cisely these  three  departments.  A  popular  vote 
throughout  our  churches  would,  with  little  doubt, 
declare  for  these.  To  remodel  the  sevenfold 
structure  of  a  century  may  be  more  difficult  than 
to  build  threefold  from  the  foundation;  yet  the 
designs  in  this  case  do  not  differ  radically,  and 
the  alterations  would  be  almost  confined  to  inter- 
nal partitions  and  rearrangement  of  space  and 
sentiment.  Some  such  consolidation  of  our  work, 
under  the  direction  of  the  National  Council, 
would  answer  admirably  the  crescendo  call  for 
thorough  systematization  of  our  Congregational 
fellowship.  The  purpose  extends  to  the  achieve- 
ment of  national  unity,  and  is  as  urgent  there  as 
at  nearer  points.  The  demand  is  not  merely  to 
approve  individually  and  locally,  but  also  to  con- 
trol in  our  representative  organizations  the 
[148] 


National  Unity 

agencies  which  we  entrust  with  our  funds  and 
business.  This  demand  may  be  mistaken.  The 
desired  unification  may  prove  unmanageable. 
But  if  it  should  appear  to  be  the  mature 
judgment  of  the  churches,  we  should  not  shrink 
from  the  application  of  our  principle  of  evolution 
and  progress.  The  chief  desideratum  is  a  thor- 
ough study  of  the  situation  in  the  best  of  spirit. 
It  is  time,  of  course,  to  repeat  the  ancient  and 
honorable  reminder  that  such  a  national  body  as 
is  now  being  described,  set  at  the  Liberty  Not 
head  of  the  Congregational  repre-  threatened 
sentative  system,  does  not  threaten  the  lib- 
erties of  the  churches.  It  declines  legislative 
and  judicial  functions.  It  has  no  authority  to 
intrude  into  the  private  affairs  of  a  single  church. 
It  offers  no  coercive  interference  to  confer- 
ences and  associations  in  their  respective  fields. 
As  we  have  seen,  the  churches  organize 
the  Council,  and  the  movement  is  from  be- 
low upward.  The  Council  has  nothing  but 
what  is  left  over  from  the  lower  bodies  —  left 
over  because  too  great  for  even  state  manage- 
ment. The  Council  is  a  national  union  for  na- 
tional purposes.  On  these  wide  issues  it  formu- 
lates the  thought  and  will  of  the  churches.  It 
spreads  these  formulations  before  all  the  churches 
at  once.  It  organizes  action  in  which  the  whole 
denomination  can  cooperate.  It  has  apparatus  for 
executing  the  ascertained  will  of  the  denomina- 
tion. Thus  it  is  the  servant  of  the  whole  body, 
[  149] 


Congregational  Adininistration 

the  agency  through  which  six  thousand  churches 
may  act  as  one  on  Hues  of  universal  Congrega- 
tional duty. 

Let  me  quote  Dr.  Mackennal  again  at  this 
highest  of  constructive  points.  He  says,  "I  am 
heartily  at  one  with  those  who  believe  that 
national  religions  needs  demand  a  National 
Council  with  power  to  administer  its  own  resolu- 
tions; and  I  think  it  would  be  quite  within  our 
wisdom  to  devise  a  scheme,  which,  while  rigidly 
safeguarding  the  autonomy  of  the  churches  in  all 
which  concerns  their  congregational  life,  should 
also  make  the  Union  (the  National  Council) 
autonomous  in  all  the  larger  matters  committed 
to  its  charge." '  There  is  food  for  further 
thought  here.  It  must  be  frankly  acknowledged 
—  boasted,  if  you  will  —  that  we  have  not 
that  corporate  autonomy  of  which  he  spoke. 
We  do  not  give  our  organized  bodies  power  to 
administer  their  own  resolutions;  we  give  them 
Corporate  permission  to  persuade  us  to  admin- 
Autonomy        jg^g^.  ^j^gjj-  rcsolutious.       We  are  so 

wrapped  up  in  the  autonomy  of  the  Christian  man 
and  the  single  church,  that  we  never  have  tried  to 
devise  a  scheme  to  make  our  organized  bodies 
autonomous  in  their  respective  spheres.  We 
autonomous  men  and  churches  surrender  auton- 
omy when,  without  any  extraneous  elements 
whatever,  we  unite  in  associations,  conferences 
and  National  Council.  Suppose  the  Council 
•Evolution  of  Congregationalism,  p.  211. 
[150] 


National  Unity 

should  say  to  a  state  conference,  "Brethren,  we 
have  all  covenanted  together  in  a  union  which  in- 
volves the  common  pledge  of  two  cents  a  member 
annually;  pay  your  share  of  it."  The  chances 
are,  because  the  facts  have  been,  that  from 
various  sections  of  that  state  would  rise  autono- 
mous growls,  which  being  interpreted  would 
mean,  "I  never  pledged  two  cents  a  member,  and 
you  can't  make  me  pay  it.  I'll  pay  it  when  I  get 
ready  —  if  I  want  to."  The  Council's  officers 
know  better  than  to  exercise  corporate  autonomy 
towards  anybody.  We  all  know  how  their  calls 
to  service  read :  "Dear  Brethren,  the  National 
Council,  lamenting  its  inability  to  consult  every 
church-member  beforehand  on  each  separate 
question,  but  trusting  in  the  good-will  of  the 
churches  —  which  in  your  persons  has  never  yet 
failed  us  —  would  respectfully  inform  you,  etc., 
etc.  .  .  .  and  would  count  it  a  great  favor  if  you 
would  kindly  consider  wdiether,  at  no  very  dis- 
tant day,  you  will  bear  your  share  in  these  im- 
portant proceedings  to  which  your  National 
Council  is  in  honor  bound,  but  on  which  it  is  most 
regrettable  that  several  of  your  leading  members 
were  unable  to  be  present  to  vote."  While  we 
appreciate  such  deferential  approach  to  our  per- 
sonal and  local  throne,  we  are  well  aware  how 
little  of  the  world's  earnest  business  could  be  con- 
ducted in  that  fashion.  What  we  still  have  too 
much  of  is  not  personal  and  local  autonomy  in 
personal  and  local  affairs;  it  is  personal  and  local 

[151] 


Congregational  Adm in istratio n 

autonomy  in  corporate  affairs,  independent  deci- 
sion how  far  we  will  act,  or  whether  we  will  act 
at  all,  in  affairs  for  which  we  have  become  jointly 
responsible  as  members  of  these  several  denomi- 
national bodies.  At  this  point,  as  suggested  in  a 
preceding  lecture,  correction  of  our  Congrega- 
tional system  is  indicated.  Some  of  us  surely 
agree  with  Dr.  Mackennal  that  Congregational- 
ists  have  wisdom  enough  "to  devise  a  scheme, 
which,  while  rigidly  safeguarding  the  autonomy 
of  the  churches  in  all  which  concerns  their  con- 
gregational life,  should  also  make  our  unifying 
bodies  (the  Union)  autonomous  in  all  the  larger 
matters  committed  to  their  (its)  charge." 
Therein  would  be  truly  achieved  "national  unity 
without  weakening  the  sense  of  personal  and 
local  independence." 

We  have  been  moving  hitherto,  as  we  proposed 
in  setting  out,  from  below  upward,  from  local 
Toward  National  church  to  National  Council,  from 
^°"y  local  autonomy  to  national  unity. 

For  three  hundred  years  our  churches  have  been 
advancing  in  this  direction.  The  other  polities 
have  had  authority  above  the  churches,  and  have 
been  conceding  more  and  more  local  independ- 
ence. We  have  overdone  the  latter,  and  are  now 
constructing  real  unity;  a  unity,  however,  which 
shall  not  be  at  any  point  or  in  any  degree  apart 
from  the  churches,  but  everywhere  and  totally  of 
the  churches,  by  the  churches  and  for  the 
churches.  We  will  not  even  segregate  our  min- 
[152] 


National  Unity 

istry  in  orders  of  clergy,  presbyteries,  or  minis- 
terial associations.  We  will  not  even  put  our 
parish  business  out  of  our  hand  for  a  twelve- 
month by  means  of  an  authoritative  session.  The 
affairs  within  our  reach  we  will  handle  by  direct 
democracy,  the  greater  affairs  by  representative 
democracy.  Our  power  shall  continue  to  be  in- 
telligence and  right  reason  shaped  into  public 
opinion.  Yet  will  we  draw  together  into  firm 
and  enduring  array,  into  fellowship  as  wide  as 
the  country  and  real  everywhere,  intO'  unified 
Christian  service.  We  will  live  at  liberty  in  the 
private  parish  ways  where  souls  are  born  from 
above  and  learn  their  Master's  sacrifice.  We  will 
organize  mighty  and  dependable  union  for  the 
great  affairs  of  the  Kingdom,  wherein  petty  in- 
dependence is  impotent. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  working  out 
such    an     adequate    administrative    system    we 

should    be  giving  the  world  a  new  ^ew  Achievement 

achievement.       There    is    nothing  i"  Ecclesiastical 

•  ,1-1        -,  XT  ,1  .1       Administration 

quite  like  it.  J\ever  yet  has  the 
ecclesiastical  world  secured  genuine  and  unham- 
pered democracy,  with  everything  —  even  the 
official  ministry  —  standing  within  the  scope  of 
the  local  church,  and  then  proceeded  out  of  such 
entirely  voluntary  materials  to  build  up  effective 
and  enduring  national  unity.  There  are  many  to 
say  that  it  cannot  even  now  be  done,  that  either 
the  democracy  will  be  damaged  or  the  unity  will 
not  be  reached.  That  it  has  not  been  done  is 
[153] 


Congregational  Administration 

true.  That  it  will  one  day  be  achieved  must  also 
be  true,  as  God  and  brotherhood  are  real.  Some- 
time there  will  be  seven  hundred  thousand  Chris- 
tian men,  each  one  free  to^  follow  what  the  Spirit 
saith  to  him,  living  happily  together  in  churches 
as  truly  self-conducting  as  their  members — seven 
hundred  thousand  Christian  souls,  or  a  million, 
glad  and  faithful  to  hold  unbound  their  places  in 
orderly  array  up  to  national  unity,  eager  in  such 
union  to  multiply  for  the  love  they  bear  Him,  the 
power  He  gives.  It  may  be  that  that  time  is 
drav.ang  near.  It  may  be  that  we  are  just  now 
those  Christians.  At  any  rate,  the  vision  is 
superb;  not  they  who  do  not  reach  it,  but  they 
who  dO'  not  follow,  fail. 


[154] 


LECTURE  VI 

CONGREGATIONALISM  AND 

CHURCH  UNION 


VI 

CONGREGATIONALISM  AND 
CHURCH  UNION 

Christian  unity  is  one  thing,  the  union  of 
churches  another.  Either  may  exist  without  the 
other.  Conceivably  there  might  be  a  single  ad- 
ministrative body  of  churches  on  earth,  inclusive 
of  all  church-members,  in  which  and  among 
whom  there  would  be  little  Christian  unity.  Such 
external  union  would  be  difficult  and  not  endur- 
ing, as  church  history  shows.  On  the  other  hand, 
Christian  unity  in  beauty  and  power,  universal 
and  abiding,  is  not  dependent  upon  the  absence  of 
diversity  and  formal  division.  It  may  be 
said  that  the  grand  objective  is  essential  unity 
and  universal  fellowship,  with  divisions  solely 
for  practical  efficiency.  What  we  have  to-day  is 
divisions  unable  to  unite,  aware  of  spiritual  unity, 
with  enough  fellowship  to  flavor  worship,  to  dis- 
turb complacency,  to  mitigate  competition,  to  con- 
fuse conscience,  and  to  lure  us  onward.  We  need 
not  forget  that  it  was  Christian  unity,  not  church 
union,  for  which  Jesus  prayed  "that  they  may 
be  one,  even  as  we  are,"  and  of  which  he  said, 
"By  this  shall  all  men  know  that  ye  are  my  dis- 
ciples, if  ye  have  love  one  to  another."  Yet  he 
must  be  a  Christian  without  conscience  who  takes 

[157] 


Congregational  Administration 

from  those  divine  words  no  rebuke  against  the 
disruptions  of  Christendom.  For  the  age-long 
discussion  has  not  only  revealed  an  anemic  spirit 
of  unity,  but  has  kept  that  spirit  anemic.  There 
are  many  wlx)  decry  the  cause  of  church  union 
"with  cheers  for  unity  and  communion.  Chris- 
tians are  one,  they  insist  —  are  one  so  deeply 
that  we  need  not  labor  for  formal  union.  And 
you  cannot  get  their  minds  upon  the  cruel  wrongs 
still  perpetrated  in  the  name  of  Christ.  The 
spirit  is  finally  judged  by  its  fruits.  And  down 
to  this  very  day.  even  in  this  best  land,  many 
fruits  of  the  spirit  which  actuates  the  Christian 
bodies  are  no  less  than  frightful.  The  shameful 
facts  are  found  in  hundreds  of  overchurched 
communities  with  their  wastes  and  strifes,  while 
in  administrative  offices  we  may  still  hear  —  al- 
beit less  often  —  insolent  refusals  to  correct  the 
wrongs. 

Dr.  H.  K,  Carroll's  racy  description  of  eccle- 
siastical variety  in  our  country  is  too  true 
Infinite  Variety  to  be  merely  amusing.  "The 
of  Religions  f^j-gj-  impression  one  gets,"  he  says, 

*'in  studying  the  results  of  the  census  is  that 
there  is  an  infinite  variety  of  religions  in  the 
United  States.  .  .  .  Our  native  genius  for 
invention  has  exerted  itself  in  this  direc- 
tion also,  and  worked  out  some  curious 
results.  The  American  patent  covers  no  less 
than  two  original  Bibles  —  the  Mormon  and 
Oahspe  —  and  more  brands  of  religion,  so  to 
[158] 


Congregationalism  and  Church   Union 

speak,  than  are  to  be  found,  I  believe,  in  any 
other  country.  .  .  .  We  scarcely  appreciate  our 
advantages.  .  .  .  One  may  be  a  pagan,  a  Jew, 
or  a  Christian,  or  each  in  turn.  If  he  is  a  pagan, 
he  may  worship  in  one  of  the  numerous  temples 
devoted  to  Buddha;  if  a  Jew,  he  may  be  of  the 
Orthodox  or  Reformed  variety ;  if  a  Christian,  he 
may  select  any  one  of  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  or  one  hundred  and  thirty  different  kinds,  or 
join  every  one  of  them  in  turn.  He  may  be  six 
kinds  of  an  Adventist,  seven  kinds  of  a  Catholic, 
twelve  kinds  of  a  Mennonite  or  Presbyterian, 
thirteen  kinds  of  a  Baptist,  sixteen  kinds  of  a 
Lutheran,  or  seventeen  kinds  of  a  Methodist.  He 
may  be  a  member  of  any  one  of  one  hundred  and 
forty-three  denominations,  or  of  all  in  succession. 
If  none  of  these  suit  him,  he  still  has  a  choice 
among  one  hundred  and  fifty  separate  and  in- 
dependent congregations,  which  have  no  denomi- 
national name,  creed  or  connection.  ,  .  .  Accord- 
ing to  the  scientists  no  atom  is  so  small  that  it 
may  not  be  conceived  of  as  consisting  of  halves. 
No  denomination  has  thus  far  proved  too  small 
for  division.  Denominations  appear  in  the  list 
given  in  this  volume  with  as  few  as  twenty-five 
members.  I  was  reluctantly  compelled  to  ex- 
clude from  the  census  one  with  twenty-one  mem- 
bers. The  reason  was,  that  while  they  insisted 
that  they  were  a  separate  body  and  did  not  wor- 
ship with  other  churches,  they  had  no  organized 
church  of  their  own.     Twelve  of  them  were  in 

[159] 


Congregational  Administration 

Pennsylvania,  divided  between  Philadelphia  and 
Pittsburg,  six  in  Illinois  and  three  in  Missouri. 
They  were  so  widely  scattered  they  could  not 
maintain  public  worship.'" 

Such  words  ought  to  be  caricature  or  criminal 
libel,  not  a  sober  statement  of  facts. 

We  may  hail  an  awakening  conscience  respect- 
ing this  horror.  Think  how  wide-spread  the  in- 
terest and  effort  toward  union  are. 

Current 

Movements  Outsidc  our  owu  land  the  move- 

Toward  Union  , ,  ■      r^  i       -r*       i       j 

ment  appears  m  Canada,  England, 
Scotland,  Wales,  Australia,  and  New  Zealand,  and 
in  all  Protestant  mission  fields  in  the  world,  with 
advanced  phases  in  India,  China,  and  Japan, 
Many  branches  of  the  Church  are  engaged  in  it. 
In  our  own  land  the  Federal  Council  is  formed  of 
thirty-three  denominations  holding  nearly  twenty 
millions  of  members.  In  England  the  Free 
Churches  are  federated  in  a  national  council.  In 
Canada  Presbyterians,  Methodists  and  Congre- 
gationalists  are  working  toward  organic  union. 
In  Australia  the  present  movement  includes  even 
the  Church  of  England.  In  South  India 
all  the  Protestant  missions  have  united  in 
a  Missionary  Conference,  while  Presby- 
terians, Reformed  and  Congregationalists  have 
been  fused  into  one  body  called  the  South  India 
United  Church.  In  China  all  the  Protestant  mis- 
sions are  federated  and  acting  together  through  a 
series  of  councils.     In  Japan  since  1900  nearly 

'  Religious  Forces  of  the  United  States,  pp.  xiv,  xv,  xviii. 
[160] 


Congregationalism  and  Church  Union 

all  Protestant  missions  have  wrought  through  a 
"Standing  Committee  of  Cooperating  Christian 
Missions,"  while  at  the  present  time  practically 
all  Japanese  Christians  are  consummating  a  na- 
tional federation  of  churches.  Thus  the  missions 
have  taken  the  lead  toward  union.  With  them 
close  communion  has  been,  as  a  missionary  said 
years  ago,  the  communion  that  shuts  in,  not  out. 
They  have  done  much  to  rouse  and  shame  the 
home-land  churches  out  of  their  lethargy,  till 
now  the  whole  English-speaking  world  at  least 
has  been  "stabbed  broad  awake." 

The  agitations  of  this  subject  show,  too,  that 
multitudes  of  Christians,  whole  denominations, 
are  discovering  the  difference  be-  Essentials  and 
tween  essentials  and  non-essentials,  Non-essentiais 
in  doctrine,  conduct  and  administration.  This  is 
a  great  discovery  for  any  one.  The  Protestant 
world  is  attaining  new  perspective  and  propor- 
tion. The  result  is  to  clear  the  road  of  petty 
obstacles  to  union. 

The  next  discovery  is  breaking  here  and  there, 
like  the  new  dawn,  the  discovery  that  in  essen- 
tials of  doctrine  multitudes  of  Christians  and 
whole  bodies  of  churches  agree.  If  only  the  es- 
sentials be  formulated  in  spiritual  and  fraternal 
terms,  we  make  our  confession  of  faith  in  a 
unison  of  wonder  and  joy,  as  appeared  so  beauti- 
fully in  the  Tri-church  Council  at  Dayton  in  1904. 
Therewith  has  come  the  surprise  that  thus  the 
heaviest  obstacle  to  union  is  being  rolled  away. 
[161] 


Congregational  Adininistration 

Nothing  has  been  so  pitilessly  divisive  as  doc- 
trinal contention.  It  thus  appears  that  in  some 
cases  the  problem  of  union  reduces  to  one  of 
polity,  adjustments  in  organization  and  property 
interests. 

Nothing  is  plainer,  however,  than  that  the 
cause  of  church  union  must  proceed  in  great 
Progress  by  variety.  Few  generalizations  of 
Experiment         ^^^-y  ^.^j^  j^g  niade.     The  enterprise 

is  experimental  everywhere.  We  are  not  far  be- 
yond the  beginning,  and  there  is  no  end.  Beyond 
the  heights  we  see  must  lie  other  ranges  of  form 
and  good.  Some  organic  unions  are  being 
completed  before  our  eyes,  of  which  there  is  no 
better  instance  than  that  of  the  South  India 
United  Church.  Other  bodies  are  still  too  far 
apart  to  treat  definitely  with  one  another.  Evan- 
gelicals and  Unitarians  cannot  yet  meet  in  doc- 
trine. Episcopalians  and  free  churches  are  still 
in  sturdy  disagreement  upon  historic  ordination. 
Such  bodies  may  cooperate  in  some  forms  of 
moral  and  religious  work,  may  even  federate  as 
do  Episcopalians  with  others  in  the  Federal 
Council  and  the  New  York  City  Federation.  But 
before  negotiating  union,  they  must  spend  much 
time  in  mutual  approaches. 

How,  then,  stands  our  Congregational  duty 
in  this  imperial  enterprise  of  the  reunion 
of  Christendom?  In  the  first  place,  all 
Congregationalists  should  face  toward  union. 
This  may  seem  to  some  too  much  to  ask. 
[162] 


Congregationalisni  and  Church  Union 

Can  we  expect  seven  hundred  thousand  per- 
sons to  be  unanimoiis  on  a  matter  so  deeply 
affecting  personal  duty,  preference  Facingr 
and  convenience?  Not,  to  be  ^o^*'^^  u°"° 
sure,  on  all  details;  not,  perhaps,  on  every 
concrete  case  which  might  arise.  But  on 
the  general  theme  that  church  union  must  be 
furthered,  that  the  wounds  of  Christendom 
must  be  healed,  that  denominations  must  ac- 
tually unite,  and  that  O'Ur  power  must  serve  this 
cause, — so  far  we  ought  to  be  awake  and  unani- 
mous. It  is  quite  evident  that  we  are  far  from 
unanimity.  Some  of  us  object  to  negotiations 
for  union  with  any  other  branch  of  the  Church. 
While  tri-church  union  with  United  Brethren 
and  Methodist  Protestants  was  in  hand,  there 
were  many  who  lay  heavily  in  indifference  and 
opposition.  T.hey  did  not  judge  that  case  on  its 
merits ;  they  did  not  prepare  their  own  minds  for 
unprejudiced  consideration  of  it.  Not  all  were 
of  this  sort  who  opposed  that  union ;  some  did 
think  it  through  and  turn  it  down  on  large 
reasoning.  But  not  a  few  allowed  local  and 
personal  considerations  to  entrench  them  against 
£0'  great  a  procedure  in  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
while  others  failed  to  discern  any  significance  in 
an  attempt  to  heal  the  breaches  in  the  walls  of 
Zion.  And  so  from  several  directions  came  t!ie 
time-worn  protest  that  Congregationalists  might 
better  let  well  enough  alone. 

Be   it   urged,    then,    that   church   union   is   a 
[163] 


Congregation al  Adniinistration 

matter  too  momentous  for  indifference,  thought- 
lessness, ignorance  or  opposition;  that  it  is  now 
Why  not  thrust  forward  by  the  cry  of  human- 
TTnite?  \^y  j^j-,j  ^1-,^  gpjrit  of  God  in  front 
of  most  other  issues  in  religious  progress; 
that  it  is  the  true  Christian  part  to  be  seeking 
ways  and  means  to  promote  it ;  that  every  con- 
crete instance  should  find  all  minds  antecedently 
hospitable  and  all  feet  ready  to  run ;  that  in  every 
case  the  burden  of  proof  lies  on  those  who  de- 
cline; that  the  proper  question  is  not,  Why  should 
we  unite?  but,  Why  should  we  not  unite? 
not,  How  can  we  evade  this  predicament? 
but,  How  can  we  assure  this  advance? 
When  two  or  more  branches  of  the  Church  ap- 
proach each  other  with  mutual  desire,  their  nego- 
tiations will  resemble  those  of  the  Tri-church 
Council  at  Dayton,  not  those  of  the  same  body 
later  at  Chicago,  not  those  of  our  own  National 
Council  on  the  same  issue  at  Cleveland.  At 
Chicago  and  Cleveland  we  lacked  much  of  a 
unanimous  purpose  to  find  a  way  of  union. 

More  than  most  Christians,  ought  Congrega- 
tionalists  to  take  this  hospitable  and  ready  pos- 
Duty  of  ture.  Sectarianism  has  been  at  a 
congrega-     low    powcr    in    US.      Evcu    loyalty    to 

tionalists  <  ^  i  wt       ^ 

our  own  has  been  weak.  We  have 
been  widely  sympathetic,  and  have  lived  no  strait- 
ened life.  We  have  lavishly  contributed  members 
and  money  beyond  our  own  boundaries.  If  we 
cannot  now  as  a  denomination  act  the  larger  parts 
[164] 


Congregationalism  and  Church  Union 

in  the  world  drama,  the  greater  shame  is  ours. 
We  ought  to  welcome  sincere  approaches  from 
any  church  bodies  at  any  time.  In  negotiations 
we  ought  to  stand,  whether  in  doctrine  or  polity, 
for  essentials  only.  With  us  difficulties  of  union 
would  in  most  instances  be  found  in  administra- 
tion. We  understand  essentials  and  non-essen- 
tials of  doctrine;  and  on  essentials  we  are  in 
agreement  with  large  sections  of  the  Church. 
Differences  of  polity  remain;  and  polity  is  a 
minor  thing. 

It  is  also  worth  while  to  remember  that  nego- 
tiations which  fail  may  yet  advance  church  union. 
The  participants  will  have  learned  of  one  another, 
will  have  greeted  wider  horizons,  will  have 
grown  in  stature.  Congregationalists  have 
gained  much  from  intercourse  with  United 
Brethren  and  Methodist  Protestants.  Abiding 
effects  will  be  found  operative  if  that  negotiation 
breaks  out  again,  or  if  some  other  body  solicits 
us. 

The    working    principle    in    practical    church 
union  is  opportunism.     Who  knows  what  can  be 
done?       Every  inch  must  be  taken  opportunism  the 
and  held.     Every  fraternal  glance  working 
must  be  answered  in  kind.     Every  ^"ncipio 
extended  hand  must  be  clasped.     Nay  more,  our 
ov/n  eyes  and  hands  and  hearts  must  be  reaching 
out  every  way  to  touch  and  draw  our  brethren. 

In  the  second  place,  we  must,  in  the  interest  of 
church  union,  develop  effective  unity  and  loyalty 
[165] 


Congregational  Administration 

of  our  own.  It  is  not  strictly  true  that  the  hon 
and  lamb  unite,  certainly  not  on  even  terms,  to 
Congregational  pi'ocluce  a  third  crcature  better 
unity  for  Tjnion  than  the  two  Originals.  The  result 
^^  ®"  is  all  lion.    To  the  lamb  are  left  not 

even  memories  of  former  days  that  were  better 
than  these.  Recall  the  characterization  of  historic 
Congregationalism  as  a  river  rising  in  New  Eng- 
land and  emptying  south  and  west  into  Presby- 
terianism.  Sometimes  w^e  think  that  outpour 
was  checked  in  1852  by  the  Albany  Convention, 
when  the  disastrous  Plan  of  Union,  which  cost  us 
several  thousand  churches  in  the  middle  west, 
was  abrogated.  It  was  in  good  measure  checked ; 
but  since  then  almost  every  ecclesiastical 
family  has  been  tapping  our  waterw'ays.  Our 
power  pours  at  last,  we  trust,  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven;  but  too  much  of  it  goes  thither  by 
trickling  off  in  driblets  to  tumble  over  firmer 
banks  into  more  acquisitive  streams.  Most 
easily  of  all  are  Congregationalists  lured  into 
other  folds.  .  It  is  to  our  credit  that  we  are 
broad-minded  and  hold  no  petty  shibboleth  to  be 
the  only  open  sesame  to  heaven;  but  we  ought 
to  stop  dissipating  our  energies.  It  is  time  to 
believe  hard  in  ourselves,  in  the  Congregational 
Church,  in  Congregational  methods  and  spirit. 
We  need  strength  for  treating  as  a  church  body 
with  other  bodies.  Firm  organization  will  ren- 
der us  more  fit,  not  less,  for  union.  When 
strong  forces  unite,  then  there  is  gain.  The 
[  166] 


,  Congregatioiialisiii  and  Church  Union 

Kingdom  comes  as  distinct  factors  coalesce  in  a 
richer  and  higher  unity. 

In  the  tri-church  discussions  the  question  kept 
recurring  whether  Congregationahsts  had  co- 
herence, whether  we  really  consti-  Movement  by 
tuted    an    orgranism,    whether,    in        Enlightened 

°  1111  Conviction 

ease  union  were  voted  by  the  three 
national  bodies,  our  Congregational  churches 
could  be  led  into  it.  The  question  was  pertinent. 
Certain  it  is  that  we  cannot  carry  all  our  churches 
and  ministers  into  any  union  upon  the  call  even 
of  their  own  representatives  in  National  Council. 
Whether  to  ratify  and  join  the  union  or  refuse 
to  do  so  would  have  to  be  left  to  every  local 
church.  Any  church  would  be  free  to  desert  the 
advancing  host.  A  strong  minority  might  fall  out 
and  maintain  the  old  body  on  the  old  ground.  A 
majority  even  might  hold  back,  discrediting  the 
whole  affair.  It  is  impossible  for  us  to  deny 
that  weakness  in  our  organization.  It  is  weak- 
ness for  the  purpose  of  church  union,  at  least  for 
any  attempt  at  speedy  union ;  for  ours  is  the  slow 
way  of  popular  enlightenment  and  conviction.  On 
the  whole,  however,  we  count  it  strength,  and  de- 
cline to  alter  our  method.  We  never  shall  ad- 
vance in  blind  obedience  to  leaders.  But  we 
shall  strengthen  our  internal  bonds  and  acquire  a 
firmer  and  more  loyal  coherence.  Our  corporate 
life  will  be  more  robust,  pervasive  and  retentive. 
It  will  grow  more  certain  that,  when  an  issue  has 
finally  been  decided  upon  full  deliberation,  prac- 


Congregational  Administration 

tically  all  of  us  will  move  together.  Then,  if 
obviously  fitter  to  survive  alone,  fitter  also  shall 
we  be  to  negotiate  and  unite. 

We  need,  in  the  third  place,  to  understand  and 
use  certain  important  advantages  which  we  enjoy 
Freedom  an  i"  the  department  of  polity.  The 
Advantage  world  movement  has  been  toward 
freedom  and  democracy,  and  there 
can  be  no  return.  Freedom,  once  possessed,  is 
not  surrendered.  If  lost,  the  battle  will  be 
fought  out  again,  whatever  waits.  Union  move- 
ments must  crystallize  near  the  points  of  greatest 
advance.  Denominations  which  are  free  cannot 
return  to  unite  with  others  which  lie  under 
authority;  the  latter  must  come  forward.  Herein 
we  of  the  Congregational  polity  —  Congrega- 
tionalists  and  others  —  lead  the  ecclesiastical 
V  oiid.  We  are  the  freest.  It  is  not  bigotry 
which  forbids  us  to  unite  with  any  but  the  free; 
it  is  the  command  of  life  itself.  We  may  and 
must  develop  coherence,  leadership  and  united 
action;  but  this,  as  we  have  seen,  is  not  to  fall 
back  into  fetters,  but  to  advance  out  of  individual- 
istic into  organized  democracy. 

Now  this  freedom  of  ours  may  at  any  moment 
block  a  particular  negotiation  for  union.  In  the 
Congregational-  main,  howcvcr,  it  gives  us  large  ad- 
ism  an  Ideal  vantage.  Human  progress  is  bring- 
° '  ^  ing  others  forward.    In  this  free  land 

all  the  other  polities  have  perforce  developed 
their  free  elements.  We  sometimes  say  that  Con- 
[i68] 


Congregationalism  and  Church  Union 

gregationalism  is  fitted  to  be  the  denominational 
solvent.  That  it  cannot  be  just  as  it  stands  to- 
day. Other  bodies  have  a  compactness,  solidity, 
esprit  de  corps,  effective  leadership,  which  will 
not  be  surrendered  and  are  not  incompatible  with 
freedom.  These  Ave  must  acquire,  while  other 
bodies  come  forward  to  meet  our  freedom.  Con- 
gregationalism is  suited  to  advanced  stages  of 
life.  It  is,  indeed,  in  its  elementary  practise, 
easy  for  new  members,  new  churches,  new  fron- 
tiers, new  missionary  conditions.  But  for  its  best 
employment  it  requires  good  measures  of  popular 
intelligence,  steadiness,  self-control,  initiative ; 
these  firm-based  upon  inherited  and  renewed 
moral  character  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  love 
and  of  Christ.  What  could  we  do  in  some  hot 
hours  of  mob  violence,  when  the  Roman  hier- 
archy has  been  able  to  quench  the  fury  and  folly 
of  the  hordes  which  dare  not  defy  the  throne? 
"Congregationalism,"  wrote  Dr.  Dale,  "is  an 
ideal  polit}^  This  is  at  once  its  reproach  and  its 
glory.  The  transcendent  prerogatives  and  powers 
which  it  claims  for  the  Church  lie  beyond  the 
reach  of  communities  which  are  not  completely 
penetrated  and  transfigured  by  the  Spirit  of 
Christ.  But  as  churches  approach  more  nearly 
to  the  perfection  to  which  Christ  has  called  them, 
their  authority  becomes  more  and  more  august, 
and  they  enter  more  and  more  fully  into  the  pos- 
session of  the  blessedness  which  is  their  inherit- 
ance in  him." 

[  169  ] 


Congregational  Administration 

Close  to  this  lies  another  advantage  which  we 
should  use  tirelessly.  The  hope  of  reaching 
Union  on  church      union     in     the     aggregate 

Local  Fields  ]ea^s  through  the  local  churches. 
True  and  lasting  church  union  is  no  less  than 
conformity  of  heart  and  character,  separate  de- 
nominations growing  into  likeness  and  lo\^e.  It 
is  labor  lost  for  officials  to  arrange  a  formal 
union  of  bodies  of  churches  which  have  not  yet 
discovered  one  another  and  clasped  hands.  It 
has  seemed  to  many  that  the  federation  move- 
ment was  in  far  sounder  youth  in  England  and 
Wales  than  in  our  own  land.  Here,  as  was  truly 
said  at  the  outset,  it  has  been  federation  at  the 
top,  the  denominational  leaders  attempting 
through  the  national  bodies  to  bring  together  the 
many  corporations  as  if  into  a  great  ecclesiastical 
trust.  The  Free  Church  Council  of  England 
and  Wales  has  been  federation  at  the  bottom. 
That  movement  has  covered  the  whole  land,  from 
the  Scotch  border  to  Land's  End  —  cities,  vil- 
lages, hamlets,  countrysides,  with  local  councils, 
every  church  enlisted,  denominational  barriers 
lowered,  no  gaps  left  between  pai'ishes,  every  neg- 
lected home  and  every  lost  or  laden  souj  sought 
out  for  ministry.  You  can  predict  the  effect  of 
such  mighty  causes.  Can  any  denominational  es- 
trangrements  or  contentions  withstand  such 
gravity  of  love  ?  Our  federation  at  the  top  will 
never  win  and  hold  until  from  the  officers'  quar- 
ters it  overruns  the  field.  But  if  now  the  leaders 
[170] 


Congregationalism  and  Church  Union 

of  the  thirty-three  denominations  whose  names 
appear  in  the  Federal  Council  can  actually  lead 
out  their  millions  of  members  in  federated  action 
on  the  local  fields,  the  day  of  real  union  will  dawn. 
The  advantages  of  separate  divisions  and 
machinery  pertain  mainly  to  leaders,  central  of- 
fices, large  churches.  The  evils  of  sectarianism 
press  hardest  on  the  common  people,  small 
churches  and  their  pastors  in  the  meager  fields, 
where  the  bills  of  fanaticism  and  local  jealousies 
are  paid  in  blood  money. 

The  way  of  wisdom,  then,  is  exactly  our  Con- 
gregational way.  We  must  labor  for  concrete 
union  on  local  fields,  and  start  The  congre- 
the  cry  up  the  line.  Popular  ^^t^^^^^  ^^^ 
movements  often  burst  suddenly  into  mighty 
power  after  a  season  of  silent  preparation. 
So  the  temperance  movement  now,  amazing 
all  but  those  who  have  guided  the  quiet  work  for 
years  in  church  and  school  and  home.  So  the 
direct  primary  movement  in  politics,  which  has 
run  by  its  own  inner  force  since  i860  well-nigh 
over  the  land.  Church  union  is  now  getting 
quiet  seed-sowing  in  all  quarters,  in  Sunday- 
school  and  home  missionary  work,  in  foreign 
missions,  in  new  cooperation  of  agents,  superin- 
tendents, pastors  and  churches,  in  brotherhoods 
and  young  people's  movements,  in  more  and 
more  frequent  organic  union  of  churches:  the 
summer  growth  will  be  short  and  swift,  I  be- 
lieve, and  the  harvest  not  far  ahead.  We  may 
[171] 


Congregational  Administration 

awake  any  morning  to  a  great  popular  uprising  in 
church  union,  so  commanding  that  denomina- 
tional lines  will  be  scorned,  and  even  the  great 
polity  lines  be  for  a  time  as  though  they  were  not. 
I  find  it  already  said  openly  that  even  now  "the  old 
classification  of  church  polities  into  the  Episcopa- 
lian, the  Presbyterian  and  the  Congregational 
has  ceased  to  be  of  practical  moment." 

The  most  hopeful  field,  however,  for  union  ef- 
fort seems  to  me  to  lie  within  each  great  polity, 
Union  in  ^^^  within  the  family  groups. 
Family  Here  are  found  the  points  of  least 
Groups  resistance  and  the  lines  of  strong- 
est contact,  A  few  more  words  from  Dr.  Car- 
roll will  best  reveal  the  possibilities.  He  says : 
"A  closer  scrutiny  of  the  list  [of  our  church 
bodies]  shows  that  many  of  these  one  hundred 
and  forty-three  denominations  differ  only  in 
name.  Without  a  single  change  in  doctrine  or 
polity  the  seventeen  Methodist  bodies  could  be  re- 
duced to  three  or  four,  the  twelve  Presbyterian  to 
three,  the  twelve  Mennonite  to  two,  and  so 
on.  The  differences  in  many  cases  are  only  sec- 
tional or  historical.  The  slavery  question  was 
the  cause  of  not  a  few  divisions,  and  matters  of 
discipline  were  responsible  for  a  large  number. 
Arranging  the  denominations  in  groups  or  fami- 
lies, and  counting  as  one  family  each  the  twelve 
Mennonite,  the  seventeen  Methodist,  the  thirteen 
Baptist  bodies,  and  so  on,  we  have,  instead  of  one 
hundred  and  forty-three,  only  forty-two  titles. 
[  172] 


Congregationalism  and  Church  Union 

In  other  words,  if  there  could  be  a  consoHdatioii 
of  each  denominational  group,  the  reproach  of 
our  division  would  be  largely  taken  away." 

This  family  reunion  is  proceeding  hopefully, 
as,  for  instance,  in  the  return  of  the  Cumberland 
Presbyterians  to  the  northern  Presbyterian  body, 
the  overtures  between  northern  and  southern 
Presbyterians,  northern  and  southern  Methodists, 
northern  Methodists  and  J^.Iethodist  Protestants, 
Baptists  and  Free  Baptists.  Similar  action  is  in 
place  between  Congregationalists,  Baptists,  Dis- 
ciples and  others. 

Within  these  families  or  groups  what  divisive 
forces  still  hold  Christians  apart?  Dr.  Carroll 
classifies  the  historic  causes  of  division  under  four 
heads. 

1.  "Controversies  over  doctrine;" 

2.  "Controversies  over  administration  or  dis- 
cipline ;" 

3.  "Controversies  over  moral  questions;" 

4.  "Controversies  of  a  personal  character." 
Almost  all  of  these  have  disappeared  like  the 

slavery  question.  Two  or  three  more  general 
forces,  likely  to  hinder  union  at  any  time,  may  be 
mentioned. 

The  first  includes  many  standing  disagree- 
ments, most  of  them  upon  non-essentials,  some 
quite  trivial ;  some  in  doctrine,  standing 
some  in  administration,  some  not  Disagreements 
strictly  in  either  field.  Thus  far  the  convictions 
of  Baptists,  and  probably  Disciples  also,  upon 
[173] 


Congregational  Administration 

immersion  form  toward  us  such  a  barrier.  Our 
doctrinal  disagreements  upon  the  person  of 
Christ  hold  Unitarians  and  Congregationalists 
apart;  this  is  not  a  minor  disagreement,  but  its 
action  is  within  polity  and  family  precincts.  The 
bishopric  was  one  of  the  issues  which  created  the 
Methodist  Protestant  body;  it  might  still  hinder 
their  happy  return  to  the  parent  church. 

A  second  seriously  divisive  force  is  the  bunch 
of  things  called  historic  associations.  Every 
Historic  branch    of    the    Church    makes    his- 

Associations      ^^^y  ^^^   loves  it.     To  merge   with 

others  seems  disloyal  to  the  fathers.  Denomina- 
tional patriotism  is  exceeding  strong  in  some 
quarters.  It  might  be  hard  for  some  lineal  Bap- 
tists to  lie  close  with  the  children  of  those  who 
stoned  the  prophets  out  of  Massachusetts  into 
Rhode  Island.  And  the  "Wee  Frees,"  both  in 
Scotland  and  among  Cumberland  Presbyterians, 
are  showing  the  stubbornness  of  tradition  and  the 
historic  conscience,  and  are  continuing  to  make 
fiercely  separative  history.  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line  has  been  almost  a  wall  of  fire  between  sec- 
tions of  churches  which  broke  apart  on  that 
awful  issue.  Such  surcharged  memories  yield 
slowly  to  the  grace  of  God.  We  have  fathers 
and  brethren  among  ourselves  who  shook  mourn- 
ful heads  over  the  proposed  surrender  of  our  Con- 
gregational name  in  the  negotiations  with  United 
Brethren  and  Methodist  Protestants.  As  to  this 
name  of  ours,  no  minister  who  could  get  day's 
[174] 


Congregationalism  and  Church  Union 

wages  for  the  time  spent  in  uttering  it  would  ever 
need  a  donation  party  or  fall  upon  the  tender  mer- 
cies of  relief  funds.  But  it  does  have  flocks  of 
beautiful  creatures  lodging  in  the  branches 
thereof.  These  three  hundred  years  of  ours  are 
wonderful ;  can  any  other  loyal  children  think  to 
match  them?  No  one  should  be  so  disloyal  as 
to  be  inconsiderate  of  others'  attachments. 

There  remains  the  divisive  power  of  tempera- 
ment. After  all  light  and  heavy  humor  about  it, 
temperament  is  a  deep-running  reality.  Tempera- 
In  church  union  discussions  we  use  it  in  '^®"* 
an  ample  sense.  Good  people  differ  in  personal 
qualities,  disposition,  character,  culture,  manners, 
home  life,  social  ways.  It  is  not  well  to  think, 
and  it  is  worse  to  say,  that  some  are  better  than 
others.  For  purposes  of  church  dissension  men 
may  be  better  or  worse;  for  purposes  of  church 
union  they  are  merely  dissimilar.  Such  differ- 
ences characterize  neighborhoods,  groups,  organ- 
ized bodies,  districts,  denominations.  Some 
people  and  groups  are  mutually  congenial ;  others, 
though  respecting  one  another,  lack  affinities.  It 
was  freely  said  that  we  Congregationalists  would 
not  most  naturally  have  sought  United  Brethren 
and  Methodist  Protestants,  nor  they  us.  They 
both  belong  rather  in  the  Methodist  group.  Many 
opposed  the  union  on  this  score.  We  should 
find  our  own  kind  more  numerous,  it  was  thought, 
among  Presbyterians;  similar  psychological  ele- 
ments and  unities,  similar  grades  of  cultivation, 
[175] 


Congregational  Administration 

similar  historic  extractions  and  developments, 
similar  social  manners  and  customs  and  resources. 
It  seems  to  many  that  we  have  drifted  farther 
from  Baptists  and  others  in  our  administrative 
group  than  from  the  Presbyterian  family. 

Such  divisive  forces  I  desired  to  introduce  into 
our  line  of  thought,  but  not  to  discuss  with  any 
Brotherhood  fulncss.  What  shall  we  think  of 
Mightier  them    with    respect    to   the    duty    of 

church  union?  It  seems  clear  to  me  that  they 
should  not  be  permitted  to  block  any  actual  at- 
tempt whatever  at  union.  Among  all  Christian 
communions  on  earth  the  uniting  power  of 
brotherhood  ought  to  be  mightier  than  all  com- 
binations of  divisive  forces.  It  is  not  so  yet; 
and  who  will  cast  the  first  stone?  My  convic- 
tion is  this,  that,  when  any  two  Christian  bodies 
have  been  moved  of  God  toward  compounding 
their  differences,  have  met,  have  found  them- 
vSelves  hopefully  near  to  union  on  the  graver 
issues  of  doctrine  and  property  and  polity,  it  is 
grief  and  shame  to  suffer  the  union  to  fail  on 
these  minor  counts.  The  scandal  of  disunion, 
the  beauty  of  union,  the  primacy  of  love,  the 
word  of  the  Master,  each  and  all  are  too 
sovereign  and  august  to  be  overborne  by  per- 
sonal pettiness.  Temperament?  "One  is  your 
Master,  and  all  ye  are  brethren."  Our  Church, 
with  its  glorious  history  and  matchless  name? 
"God  so  loved  the  world."  Our  preferences? 
"Hereby  know  we  love,  because  he  laid  down 
[176] 


Congregationalism  and  Church  Union 

his  life  for  us :  and  we  ought  to  lay  down  our 
lives  for  the  brethren."  The  duty  of  church 
union  is  red,  blood-red. 

The  union  of  churches  is  chiefly  a  means  to- 
ward the  reunion  of  Christendom.  But  what 
really   is   this   greater   end?      It   is        Eeunion  of 

said   that,    if   we   could    once   get   to-  Christendom 

gether  in  one  all-inclusive  organization,  we 
should  inevitably  break  up  again ;  the  bulk  would 
be  too  enormous  and  clumsy  to  move.  The 
reply  is  that  then  we  might  properly  divide.  We 
should  have  established  the  primacy  of  union  in 
the  conscience  of  the  Christian  world.  We 
should  have  bowed  together  under  the  scepter  of 
love.  The  trouble  is  not  that  United  Brethren, 
Methodist  Protestants  and  Congregationalists 
are  living  and  working  in  three  separate  organ- 
izations; the  trouble  is  that  they  have  declined 
to  unite.  That,  not  actual  working  divisions, 
is  the  scandal  of  Christendom.  We  could 
justify  church  divisions  made  upon  convenience, 
temperamental  affiliations,  or  preference  for  cer- 
tain forms  of  worship  or  administration,  pro- 
vided that  the  separate  bodies  never  preyed  upon 
one  another,  always  cooperated,  in  honor  pre- 
ferred one  another,  and  sprang  together  with  a 
loyal  shout  wherever  essential  unit}'  was  seriously 
questioned.  The  profound  issue  of  unity  once 
made  supreme  in  the  heart  of  the  Christian  world 
and  sovereign  in  its  practise,  agreeable  and  prac- 
tical measures  of  diversity  promote  health  and 
[  177] 


Congregational  Administration 

efficiency.  The  second  great  commandment  does 
not  forbid  us  to  select  our  church  relations,  along 
with  our  social  associations,  among  our  affinities 
and  conveniences.  Ideas  rule,  not  forms  and 
physical  arrangements.  The  question  is  not,  Are 
the  churches  of  Christ  divided  into  separate  ad- 
ministrative bodies?  not,  How  many  separate 
bodies?  but,  What  does  it  mean?  Why  do 
they  remain  apart?  Why  do  they  permit  the 
wrongs  and  woes  of  division  to  flourish?  So 
long  as  the  answer  is  that  they  are  not  willing  to 
unite,  that  they  prefer  to  tolerate  the  wrongs  and 
woes,  that  they  even  prefer  to  flourish  themselves 
upon  those  wrongs  and  woes,  so  long  must  the 
duty  of  church  union  stand  paramount.  Not 
until  the  answer  may  be  that  the  evils  of  division 
are  at  an  end,  that  the  churches  are  heartily  ready 
to  unite,  that  existing  divisions  express  quite 
minor  choices  of  practical  convenience  and  per- 
sonal preference,  that  all  such  choices  are  held 
subject  to  constraints  of  fellowship,  —  not  until 
essential  unity  has  thus  embodied  its  victory  all 
round  the  world,  can  church  union  halt  or  falter. 
But  in  order  to  compass  such  unity  how  far 
must  church  union  be  carried?  Who  knows? 
Limits  of  Not,  I  believe,  so  far  as  to  a  single 

Church  Union  all-embracing  organization;  per- 
haps not  so  far  as  that  in  any  Christian  country. 
But  just  so  far,  though  it  be  unto  a  single  organi- 
zation and  the  ends  of  the  earth,  as  may  be  neces- 
sary to  unite  the  whole  Christian  world  in  un- 
[178] 


C ongrcgationalism  and  Church  Union 

doubted  and  unfailing  brotherhood.  The  or- 
ganic union  of  Christian  denominations  must  be 
fostered.  Cooperation  is  not  sufficient.  Federa- 
tion is  not  sufficient.  The  best  Christian  con- 
science condemns  the  one  hundred  and  forty- 
three  denominations  and  their  attempted  vindica- 
tions. The  future  must  decide  where  a  halt  in 
the  union  movement  may  be  made. 


[179] 


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